


Brave New World

by ForzaDelDestino



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: A hint of "Sherlock" in the final chapters if you squint, Awkwardness, Bedroom Sex, Bond may be getting older, First Time, Frustrated!Bond, Humor, M/M, POV Alternating, Sexual Content, Sexual Tension, Shower Sex, Slow Build, Snark, Suspense, Wary!Q, but his libido isn't slowing down
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-12
Updated: 2014-04-16
Packaged: 2017-12-05 03:09:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 70,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/718180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ForzaDelDestino/pseuds/ForzaDelDestino
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events at Skyfall, life was different for Agent 007. M was gone—no, there was a new M. There was a new Headquarters. He had a new flat, in which he was still unpacking boxes of belongings. And--bloody hell!--an associate of Raoul Silva had materialised.  Then there was the matter of that new, young Q…a lanky, bespectacled boy with a mop of dark hair, who was in serious need of an attitude adjustment...and far too wary when it came to what Bond had in mind for him.</p>
<p>[References to quotes from Skyfall and one or two much earlier James Bond films.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. What Q Thought

**CHAPTER 1: What Q Thought**

“I really hate flying,” said Q almost petulantly as he shut his laptop with a defiant snap.

Naturally, this made absolutely no impression on Moneypenny.

“M says he can’t spare any agents,” she drawled, looking at Q from the corner of her eye. “They can’t spare me either, more’s the pity; too many meetings to arrange. Somebody will have to hand over the watch, and show him how it works. You could send a subordinate, but when it comes to 007, we don’t want one of your little geek squad infants to cock it up.”

“They’re not infants,” Q replied with a touch of indignation, but Moneypenny could see that he was going to give in. “And I loathe flying.”

“Poor you,” said Moneypenny remorselessly. Q raised an eyebrow at her, and she grinned. Since their first meeting not all that long ago, at MI6, when they were both new and surrounded by much older, experienced veterans, they had had a good rapport; their conversations tended to be snarky and filled with banter, but the mutual respect was there. “Better pack, then.”

“Right,” muttered Q, his voice, which had gone up a near half-octave at her announcement, restored to its usual cool, calm tenor. “I suppose my papers are in order? Ready in an hour, just need to…” He lifted a small, black case from the top of his immaculate workstation.

“We’ll get you there ahead of the typhoon,” Moneypenny said, still grinning. “But there’s bound to be some turbulence. You’d better bring your pills.”

Q groaned almost inaudibly.

“You’ll rendezvous at the Hotel Okura. You know it, don’t you? You’ve been to Tokyo before. Bond’s been there for three days, scoping out the situation.”

A corner of Q’s mouth twitched downward. “Aren’t the seismologists predicting another major earthquake within the decade? We don’t want even more of 007’s tech than usual to be completely destroyed.”

“Oh stop,” Moneypenny said with mild exasperation. “I’ve been to Tokyo loads of times, and there are lots of little mini-earthquakes…you don’t even notice them. Oh, and leave the cardigan here, will you? Take a nice suit, for God’s sake, you’ve got to look the part.”

“The part?”

“Oh, a well-to-do tourist, I don’t know. The Okura’s rather upscale.”

“I don’t maintain an extensive wardrobe,” Q replied acidly, shrugging his shoulders beneath the disputed cardigan. “I’m not a field agent. This—“  He gestured around the white-walled computer lab that, at the present hour, was humming with activity. “—is where I live, for the most part.”

“Right,” said Moneypenny, reaching into her handbag and then extending an envelope, which she waved in Q’s face. “Flight tickets, passport, funds. Don’t you have a decent, tailored suit jacket? You’re Head of Q Branch; no need to slouch about in those wretched cardigans. Everybody will think you’re a university student. Headquarters can kit you out, if you haven’t anything appropriate.”

“What’s wrong with my cardigans?” Q asked, eyes on the envelope as it flicked past his nose. “I like them. They’re comfortable.”

“Nothing’s _wrong_ with them. But you have an image to keep up. Outside of HQ, that is.”

Q rolled his eyes. “Did Headquarters provide you with the fancy frock you took to Macao, when you met up with 007 at the casino?”

“You’d better believe it,” Moneypenny responded ruefully. “As if I could afford that sort of thing. Not on government pay. But they did let me keep it.”

She was smiling in a reminiscing sort of way, eyes suddenly bright. Q thought he knew why; it was common knowledge that she and James Bond had had what the staff of Q Branch coyly referred to as at least one close encounter, in the past. On the other hand, while they clearly liked each other, and engaged in frequent innuendo-laden banter, it was equally clear that whatever it was they done together had been more in the line of friends-with-benefits than romantic entanglement.

“I don’t see why Tanner couldn’t go.”

“He’s busy,” said Moneypenny, lowering the envelope to the surface of Q’s workstation-desk. “M won’t send his right-hand man. It’s got to be you. But I lobbied to get you two days’ leave, afterward. You deserve them, after all we’ve been through lately.”

Accepting the inevitable, and hoping against hope that the typhoon, or whatever it was, would subside before reaching the Japanese coastline, Q glanced about the lab for the most reliable technician—Carter, most likely—to leave in command.

“Thanks, Eve,” he said aloud, unplugging his laptop and then reaching for the envelope.

“007’s got a tracker, but of course you know that. You’ll find him without any trouble.” Moneypenny pushed him gently away from his desk. “Go on, then. Mallory—I mean M—wants to see you now, before you leave.”

“First M, then typhoons, then a twelve hour flight, and then 007. What have I done to merit this?”

“Relax,” Moneypenny said kindly. It had been a busy week, and she could sense that Q was tightly wound, although none of that showed in his narrow, angular face, with its schoolboy-pink lips and that unruly mop of wavy black hair. The hazel green eyes, behind oversized spectacles, gave nothing away either. He _did_ look like a university student, cardigan or no cardigan, and Moneypenny knew only too well that there had been plenty of malicious gossip when MI6 chose to make a seemingly untried youth the head of its Q Branch. She herself had been the subject of some less than pleasant comments by a few members of the Old Guard, although she wasn’t certain whether this was due to her own youthful state, her gender, her mixed ethnic background, or the fact that she had very nearly terminated a Double O agent.

“I’m perfectly relaxed, thanks,” Q retorted, brandishing the envelope. “I’m off, then. Would you tell Carter that he has the com, temporarily, and see to it that one of the _infants_ locks up the lab, tonight?”

“Of course,” Moneypenny murmured, checking her watch and giving Q another little push. “Have fun,” she added gratuitously, as Q headed for the door. “You know. Do something extracurricular. Something that has _nothing_ to do with algorithms and exploding pens.”

“Q Branch hasn’t done exploding pens in ages,” Q muttered, drawing his straight, dark brows together. “I told the same thing to 007.”

“Handprint-sensitive Walthers, then,” Moneypenny said impatiently. “Go out to dinner. See the sights. Better yet, get yourself laid. That shouldn’t be difficult. You’re pretty enough.”

Q’s breath exploded outward in a huff of irritation as he pocketed the envelope and vanished through the door.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

James Bond was _not_ in Tokyo.

Q spent a good fifteen minutes silently cursing the entire Double O division, in spite of the fact that his expression remained as calm and alert as usual. At least he hadn’t already checked himself into the hotel. Gathering his modest carry-on luggage, he made his way to the train station and purchased a ticket to Kyoto. A coded message from Bond, sent to Q’s mobile, indicated that he had gone there ahead of schedule.

Bloody arrogant, cocky 007.

A twelve and a half hour flight—excruciating for anybody with Q’s dislike of air travel—had not done wonders for his temper, and another two and a half hours on the Shinkansen—the Bullet Train—did not improve matters.  Once in the old city, Japan’s ancient capital long before the establishment of Tokyo, he made his way out of the vast and towering train station—which dwarfed so many of the old, tile-roofed buildings nearby, it was no wonder most of the locals hated it—and took a taxi to Bond’s hotel. Once there, he registered, took the lift up to his room, and allowed himself to collapse on the wide and elegant western-style bed.

There had been, as Moneypenny had warned him, a generous amount of turbulence on the flight. The typhoon was approaching; it was beginning to rain outside, and Q had the mother of all headaches to contend with. Two analgesic tablets took care of the last of these problems, but the weather wasn’t getting any better, and Q was relieved to see, from 007’s tracker, that Bond had not gone out, was somewhere in the building. He followed the electronic trail of breadcrumbs to the glassed-in rooftop pool, where he found 007 swimming laps in the fast lane, the others being occupied by various paddling hotel guests, their children, and an assortment of brightly colored flotation devices.

Bond’s arms clove the water with sharp regularity, moving like pistons; when he reached the end of the pool, he hauled himself out and sat on the edge, dripping and relaxed, as Q approached.

“The old dog,” Moneypenny sometimes called him in a mildly affectionate tone of voice,  when 007 wasn’t around to hear, and the gods only knew how often Bond and Q had sniped at each other about Bond’s advancing age—the man was into his forties, after all—and Q’s undeniable, unrepentant youth. Bond didn’t exactly look _old_ —just a bit haggard, a bit weathered; his keen features were still arresting, still drew the eye, but his ice-blue eyes looked _tired_. Beneath that face, the body was as taut, well-muscled, and sleek as always, but Q found it difficult to take his eyes away from the scars that marked it.

“Well, Q. What have you got for me?”

There it was, the brusque, nonchalant, very faintly sardonic tone of voice Bond often used when speaking to Q.  Whether standing next to Q’s workstation, peering over his shoulder as he typed code into his laptop, or examining the latest piece of tech his Quartermaster had just presented him with, or leveling a critical eye at something on one of the wallscreens, Bond seemed to derive some satisfaction from addressing him as if he were a child genius who had just been caught sneaking out of school

“A Rolex.”

“A—is _that_ all?”

“You were expecting a portable folding helicopter, perhaps? I believe my predecessor gave you one, once before. In this very country, in fact.”

Bond eyed the small, black felted box Q had just dropped into his palm. “I’ve said it before: not exactly Christmas, is it?”

Q sighed and said nothing, so Bond sighed even more gustily and opened the box. An elegant Rolex watch, gleaming silver and gold, rested within. Bond raised both eyebrows.

“Alright, Q, don’t tell me.”

Q frowned. “It’s quite simple, 007. It contains a communicator; radiation and gas detectors, motion and heat sensors—passive infra-red and Doppler—that can give you the coordinates of any human being within seventy-five feet; internet access, should you want to google the latest Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue to pass the time; and a standard GPS.”

“No weapons capacity?”

“No. You’ve got your Walther, haven’t you? The third we’ve needed to make for you, since I’ve been with MI6. Look, the buttons are on the side.”

“I don’t see any point to the internet access,” murmured Bond, squinting at the watch face. “The screen’s not much bigger than my thumbnail. How can you see any of the readouts properly?”

“Press the alarm button twice. Whatever’s on the screen with be projected onto any surface you like, preferably a flat one, to make it perfectly legible. Instructions are programmed in, in case your memory isn’t what it was.”

“A little more respect for your elders, if you please.”

Q snorted, he couldn’t help it, but managed not to laugh.

“Seriously, nothing else?”

“A box of chocolates from Moneypenny. They’re real.”

“Ah,” said Bond, looking pleased. He settled the box on top of his bare thighs and opened it. “Care for one?”

“Thank you, no.”

“Just as well,” Bond said, selecting a chocolate from its little paper nest. “They’d be likely to give you spots.”

Q held his peace. He ought, he told himself, to be accustomed, by now, to being twitted about his age by MI6’s most legendary killing machine.

The pool was beginning to empty as the dinner hour approached, and nearly all of the lanes were now clear. Bond, still seated on the edge, gave his Quartermaster an assessing look.

“Care for a swim?”

Q rolled his eyes. No, damn it, he was not going to peel himself out of his brand new, MI6-issue, tailored suit, and struggle into a pair of Speedos that would only accentuate his near-fragile physique, the thinness and pallor of his fine-boned, long-limbed body. He was tired, and had no interest in being on the receiving end of any condescending smirks from a well-built, cleanly muscled Double O agent, no matter how, er, bloody attractive that agent might be.

“I think we might discuss your mission, 007.”

“Right.” Bond stood up; his arms and torso were dry, now, but his swim trunks were still damp. He stretched, leisurely, and Q’s eyes flickered before he averted them from the play of muscles that moved like a panther’s beneath the surface of his skin.

“Why did you leave Tokyo for Kyoto a day early?”

“For the best of reasons. My quarry is arriving a day early.”

“We ought to have you microchipped,” said Q, without heat. “I’ve heard you were always the most difficult of the Double Os to keep track of.”

“You boffins,” retorted Bond, also without heat, and for a moment it almost looked as though he would smile. “Have you eaten since your flight, Q?”

Q shook his head, realizing suddenly that he was famished as well as exhausted.

“Have dinner with me?”

Q blinked. “What?”

“You’d be doing me a service, actually.” 007 draped a towel over his shoulders, took Q by the elbow, and moved in the direction of the lift.

“How?” said Q cautiously, trying to disengage his elbow. “Don’t tell me you’re in hot water already. Your, um, target hasn’t arrived yet.”

“You’re right, he hasn’t. But he’ll be here before midnight, _a day early_ , as I discovered, and the sooner I take care of things the better. Before he even attempts to sell that information he stole from Military Intelligence. Even more importantly, before he’s able to break the code and actually read it.”

“I don’t think he’ll decrypt it. My colleagues and I invented that code.”

“I’ll go to his room before one. Posing as a buyer. Although he may see through that; he’s not stupid.”

Q wrinkled his brow. “So? How would my dining with you be doing you a service?”

Bond shrugged. “There’s a fellow from the Italian diplomatic corps…his wife’s staying here. Very beautiful and very…shall we say, the lady’s been round the block with any number of gentlemen since her husband was posted to Tokyo. I daresay she’s bored. I was introduced to her this afternoon—not with my real name, naturally—and she made it quite plain that a visit to my room tonight would not be out of the question.”

No surprise there, and Q indulged in some mental eye-rolling. “Can’t control your lower instincts, can you, 007. It’s no wonder your reputation—"

The corners of Bond’s mouth turned down. “ _I_ didn’t encourage her, Q, God knows. But I need to make certain that neither she nor anybody else tries to invade my privacy this evening. If you have dinner with me, and come back with me to my room, after, I think she’ll get the picture. So to speak.”

The lift doors slid open and they stepped inside, Q doing his best not to let his jaw drop.

“007, you must be joking.”

“As two of your predecessors used to say, I never joke about my work.”

“Can’t you think of another method for keeping her away?”

“Not really,” replied Bond, shrugging once again. “It’ll have to do, Q. If Moneypenny, another field agent, or even Tanner, had come in your place, I’m sure they’d indulge me. After all, it’s only for show.”

“Oh, good lord.”

“No worries, Q,” said Bond, and then suddenly, unexpectedly, he grinned. “This shouldn’t require more than a few fond looks and maybe a little hand holding.”

Q looked at him aghast, and then scowled when he heard Bond actually chuckle.

“I suppose I have time to change my shirt, before dinner,” Q snapped, giving in and changing the subject at the same time. His MI6-issue suit still looked crisp and beautifully pressed, but the shirt, which was his own…Q lowered his chin, surveying the blue button-down, severely wrinkled from hours spent squirming in an uncomfortable airline seat, with distaste.

“Yes, of course. Shall we say half past eight?”

The lift doors opened on Q’s floor, and without replying, he slipped out and fled to his room. The curtains hadn’t been drawn, and for a moment he stood looking out regretfully at the winking lights of the city, softly glowing paper lanterns hanging from eaves of centuries-old tea houses along the Kamo River, the outlines of the rolling hills that surrounded them, the distant spires of old temples. Well, the remainder of the evening would be spent play-acting at being the love interest, of all things, for whomever James Bond was pretending to be—some sort of rogue military type, no doubt. So much for sightseeing. He stripped, showered, and shaved, donned a white shirt and dark grey tie, scrambled back into the handsomely tailored suit, and made an effort to smooth his obstinately wayward hair.

“Oh shit,” muttered Q, as his fingers slipped on the knot of his silk tie. “Shit, shit, shit.”

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

“I knew you’d be pretty for me,” Bond said coolly, with only the faintest hint of a smirk, when Q appeared at his table promptly at half past eight.

“Very funny, 007. Now, where is this man-eating diplomat’s wife I’m meant to be protecting you from?”

“Q, you really must do something about that tone of address. Anybody would think you didn’t like me.”

“Really?” said Q icily, shaking out his napkin. “Imagine that.”

Menus written in both Japanese and English were placed before them, along with a separate wine list. The dining room was simply furnished but elegant, with a great deal of polished natural wood, white damask tablecloths and napkins, and flower arrangements scattered here and there. Q perused the menu and avoided Bond’s amused glance.

“Don’t turn your head,” Bond said, under his breath. “But the man-eater is sitting two tables to our left.” He reached out and closed one hand lightly over Q’s wrist, and the Quartermaster had to restrain himself from giving a massive start.

“Don’t look so surprised,” admonished Bond, still under his breath. His thumb stroked Q’s prominent wrist bones, and Q bit his lip, pushing his glasses up on his nose so as to peer unobtrusively in the direction of the nearby table. The lady who occupied the sole chair there was indeed tantalizing, if you liked that sort of thing, which Q emphatically did not. Auburn hair, carefully coiffed, the deep V of her black dress revealing a swelling bosom of impressive proportions, long, tanned legs. Jewels winked at her ears and on several of her scarlet tipped fingers. Her eyes were heavily made up, and at the moment they were leveled in the direction of 007 and himself.

Their meal arrived, and Q devoted himself to his delicately prepared vegetables, wondering vaguely how Moneypenny, or one of the field agents, would handle the situation, were they in his place. Nothing in his job description had prepared him to fake-flirt with a Double O agent. Deciding to make the best of things and do his work properly, whatever the cost to his dignity, he raised his eyes to Bond’s and gave a wistful little smile.

“Much better,” said Bond approvingly. From his tone of voice, Q could tell that the bastard was finding the situation, and his Quartermaster’s discomfiture, extremely entertaining.  Gritting his teeth, Q suddenly wished that he had an old-school, Cold-War-era MI6 pen, that would explode _bright blue_ _ink_ all over 007’s immaculate white shirt.

There were several courses to the meal, each exquisitely presented, and sake, of which Q noticed that Bond was drinking very little. Pudding, or to label it more accurately, dessert, consisted of a number of tiny pastries, sliced fresh fruit, and some sugary confections, accompanied by very strong espresso. Peeking surreptitiously at the Italian diplomat’s wife, Q noticed that she had gone through nearly her entire bottle of white wine, and that her eyes, a little glazed, were still focused on his dinner partner.

“Doesn’t appear to be taking the hint, does she?” Bond muttered as he stared into his espresso cup. “Or perhaps she needs glasses.”

“Oh,” said Q, wondering how much longer they would have to carry on with this absurd charade. “That’s vexing.”

Once the meal was finished and paid for—Bond charged it to his room—they walked to the bank of elevators down the hall. Q stifled a yawn and rubbed his eyes—relieved that at least 007 was not trying to hold his hand—but Bond glanced over his shoulder briefly, and gave a grunt of dismay.

“The bloody woman’s just behind us. What can she be thinking? Haven’t I’d already made it obvious that—“

“Are you sure she isn’t one of your target’s henchmen, er, _henchwomen_?” Q whispered jokingly, but Bond’s lips were pressed together with mild aggravation, and he didn’t laugh. There was a little alcove by the two lift doors, furnished with upholstered chairs; before Q could say anything else, Bond had pulled him into the alcove and pushed him against the wall, where they would be clearly visible. Then he crooked a finger beneath his Quartermaster’s chin and raised his face.

“What are you doing,” Q asked frostily. “Checking for spots?”

“Don’t be impudent,” retorted Bond under his breath, but with discernible amusement. He bent his head towards Q, and his bristly cheek barely brushed against his Quartermaster’s freshly shaven one. Q opened his mouth to say something indignant, but closed it again as Bond adjusted his angle of approach and kissed him on the lips.

Q’s eyes widened with surprise, and he made a little sound of remonstrance, to no avail. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that the diplomat’s wife had come to a standstill by the lifts, staring at them with a combination of dismay and displeasure. Bond had closed his hands around Q’s thin wrists with what looked like a lover’s grasp, but was really a very firm and restraining grip.

“For God’s sake,” he mumbled against Q’s mouth. “Try to look a little enthusiastic, will you?” Q stared daggers at him, but when Bond pulled his hands up to rest on his shoulders, Q wrapped his arms round 007’s neck and feigned a loud, passionate sigh. His eyes had closed of their own accord, lashes beating against his cheeks, but when he heard the sharp tap-tapping of a pair of high heels on the hallway floor, he opened them, a little groggily, to see the diplomat’s wife marching away from them, ire apparent in every movement of her sinuous, designer-clad body.

“Well, well,” Bond was saying as he released Q’s wrists, but just then the door to the closest lift slid open, and Q turned and stalked inside, jaw clenched. He could feel color flooding his face, and snapped, “If you say a word about this ridiculous…um…to anybody at HQ…”

“Not a chance,” Bond said pleasantly, but his attention was now focused on the Rolex, fastened about his wrist. “You’re quite popular at HQ, you know, and I wouldn’t want to be the envy of half the Double O section, not to mention a good portion of your own staff.”

“That’s not funny,” said Q, but his blush had faded by the time they reached Bond’s door. “Is there enough time for me to fetch _my_ luggage, from my room?”

“Have you unpacked any of it?”

“No, but—“

“Do it quickly, then,” Bond said flatly. Tightening his lips for the tenth time that evening, Q made his way to his own room, seized his suitcase and carry-on, and returned to Bond’s in record time. Entering the room, which featured vast windows, nearly floor to ceiling, and a well-stocked mini-bar, he set his things down near the largest armchair, just as Bond pushed the button that drew the curtains shut.

“Your laptop’s in there, no doubt,” Bond murmured, gesturing at the carry-on. “No need to use the earpiece for this job; this fellow Midgard will be in the same building, and it’s a basic operation with relatively little risk; no reason to have an escape plan.”

“Perhaps not,” Q said, frowning, as he examined the faint marks on both of his wrists. “But he’s a versatile combatant, from what I’ve heard. Good with guns, knives, martial arts. Are you certain I shouldn’t—“

“There’s no need,” Bond said again, unearthing the case containing his Walther from his own locked luggage. “Just make yourself at home, and wait for me. Or go to sleep, if you want to.”

“And what’s to do if Signora whatever her name is, your would-be _inamorata_ ,comes knocking while you’re not here?”

“If you answered the door naked, it would help,” replied Bond wryly as he slid the Walther into the holster hidden beneath his jacket. Q adopted an affronted expression and then turned his back, shoulders stiff. As he walked to the mini-fridge for a bottle of water, he ignored the dry chuckle echoing in the room behind him.

As there was nearly an hour until Bond’s planned visit to Mr Midgard’s room, Q sat down and set up his laptop, connecting it neatly to the little desktop computer provided by the hotel for the most expensive of the guest rooms. As he typed away, staring with concentration at the screen, he could hear Bond behind him, telephoning HQ on a secure line.

Perhaps five minutes later, he let out a breath of satisfaction and rubbed his tired eyes. “I’m in.”

“What was that?” Bond asked absently as he studied the face of his Rolex. “I’m testing your motion detectors; what did you say?”

“I’ve hacked the hotel’s system, have access to their registration files,” Q said quietly, indicating his glowing screen with a flick of a finger. “He’s here; he checked in shortly before we sat down to dinner. He’s in Room 1420; he ordered a meal from room service, and a bottle of vodka. His television is switched on, and he’s watching some closed-circuit channel.”

“Probably porn,” Bond said with the ghost of a smile. “I’ll see to it that he goes with a bang, then.”

The corner of Q’s mouth twitched. “I doubt he’ll thank you for it.”

Bond went to the door, and turned. He was cold and focused now, his senses attuned to every movement and sound in his vicinity, but his glance swept past Q without really seeing him. His hand slipped into his jacket, to check his firearm, and then out again, empty.

“Be certain the door is double-locked,” he said quietly. “I shan’t be long.” Before Q could say a word, even to wish him luck, the door clicked shut behind him.

Q took a deep breath, got to his feet, and locked the door. Bond had left his tracker in the room; there was no point in attempting to follow him on the monitor. Sighing, he sat down on the extra-wide bed, then kicked off his shoes and lay down, stretching and yawning with fatigue.

It wouldn’t hurt to sleep, just a bit, until 007 returned from his mission. And Q had faith in him; he didn’t think Midgard would present him with too much of a challenge. An amoral, vicious killer, yes, but not as skilled as Bond, and Q thought it unlikely that his weapons, whatever they were, would be anything like a match for the gun he had made, with such painstaking care, for 007.


	2. What Bond Did

**Chapter 2: What Bond Did**

It was never wise to underestimate a hired assassin, or a dealer in state and military secrets, James Bond reminded himself. Certainly not a combination of the two.

He had anticipated an easy kill and a rapid return to his hotel room, to deposit the portable hard drive—with its encoded military intel—in the carefully constructed hidden compartment in his luggage, pour himself a scotch, and exchange a few prickly comments with his young Quartermaster, before settling in for a well-deserved sleep. The heat and motion censors built into Q's Rolex told him that there was only one person in Midgard's room, no associates, no other would-be buyers.

Midgard had not been an easy kill, by anybody's standards. Tall, silver-blond, glacially handsome, American-born but of Scandinavian ancestry, he had displayed a natural charisma that was obvious to Bond from the moment Midgard opened his hotel room door and affably invited him in.

They went through the motions of negotiating a sale, but it became clear fairly quickly that Midgard was suspicious of him. He was smooth and charming, but perhaps he had seen a photo of Bond's face, or perhaps somebody had tipped him off that MI6 was sending an agent to retrieve the intel he was actively trying to sell. He carried on as if he was totally oblivious to the likely identity of the quiet, well-dressed Brit sitting face to face with him, but it wasn't difficult for Bond to sense what was going to happen. Midgard offered him a drink, rose to get it, and then pivoted with lightning speed, diving in Bond's direction with a weapon in either hand.

Fortunately for the future of national security, Midgard had underestimated Bond. There were several minutes of hand-to-hand combat—Midgard having closed with Bond before he could reach into his jacket for his gun—but there they were more or less evenly matched. One of Midgard's weapons, which resembled an augmented stun-gun, was promptly knocked across the room, but it took longer to relieve him of the other, a thin, razor sharp knife that he wielded with obvious expertise. He had a long reach, and his knife raked down the side of Bond's left shoulder and arm, cutting through fabric and slicing at the skin beneath.

Midgard was a confident bastard, Bond had to give him that, but his abilities didn't quite match his self-assurance. His eyes gave him away. They betrayed him when he cast a triumphant look at the walking stick leaning against his chair, just before making a grab for it. Bond knew, even as his opponent raised the handsomely carved thing to point it in his direction, that a firearm was built into it. This gave him time to claw his own gun out of its hidden holster, aim, and fire. So much for being overconfident. But in the split second before Bond shot Midgard through the heart, he saw a sudden flash of fear in his face, the almost pathetic, wild-eyed look of a terrified boy. Once the man was lying on the floor, dead, he reminded himself that this was a sadistic sociopath, a cold-blooded murderer, and forced himself to search Midgard's clothing and belongings dispassionately, with a clinical thoroughness. Not that this made him feel all that much less bitter.

Now, more than anything else, Bond needed a drink.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I shan't be long," Bond had said to Q, upon leaving his hotel room. He had estimated that the job would require a half hour at the most. But it was a good hour and half later, and when he quietly opened his double-locked door, he found the lights in the room dimmed, and Q fast asleep.

He had been thinking rather vaguely of telling Q to help him wrap something securely round his bleeding arm, but hesitated to wake him. The youngster (Bond had fallen into the habit of labeling anybody under the age of thirty-five a young person) was no doubt exhausted, what with flying, which everybody knew he hated, jet lag (Bond had had a good three days to get over his), and being completely outside of his element. So Bond slid a wadded-up towel beneath the sleeve of his jacket, fetched a bottle of Scotch and a glass from the sideboard, and sat down to a good, stiff drink.

Every so often, he glanced over at his Quartermaster, who seemed to be sleeping the sleep of the just and innocent, in spite of the increasingly loud clatter of rain against the windows, and the moan of the approaching storm. The weather wouldn't be nearly as bad here as on the coast, but it would be bad enough to cause delays at all local transportation hubs. And if, by some chance, their flight back to the UK wasn't delayed, poor Q would be forced to endure severe turbulence as well as additional air travel. The room was almost too warm for comfort; Q had stripped to his shorts before succumbing to sleep, and it was obvious to Bond that the young man rarely saw the sun—his skin was such a pale shade of olive—and that a massive intake of calories would probably do little, if any, harm to his fine-boned, long-limbed physique. He looked almost as fragile as a girl, with that smooth skinned, narrow, charmingly molded torso, his long, slender throat. Q murmured in his sleep, half turning in Bond's direction, and Bond noticed, as he had earlier, just before their kiss, that his lips were a deep, dark, natural pink—almost crimson.

He stood up, setting his nearly empty glass down on the marble-topped table next to him, and the clink of its contact rang loud and clear, in the silent room. Q's eyes snapped open, focusing immediately on the source of the noise, and Bond found himself impressed with his swift reflexes…Q wasn't a field operative, after all.

"Sorry to wake you," he said, retrieving his glass and replenishing the contents. "The business took longer than expected. Care for a drink?"

"No…thank you," Q said evenly, sitting up. His eyes went to the bloodstained sleeve of Bond's jacket. "Are you all right?"

"A scratch." Bond flexed his arm experimentally. "Mission accomplished."

"As I expected it would be. Was there any trouble?"

"Not really. Things went pretty much according to plan." Bond's voice had gone flat; he was thinking of the look in Midgard's eyes, in the seconds before he died.

"You must be pleased."

Bond rolled his eyes. "Surely you don't think I enjoy killing people, Q."

He saw Q bite his lip, his eyes registering the half-empty bottle of Scotch, before he swung his legs over the side of the bed. "007," Q said patiently. "Mr Midgard killed people for no reason. Who weren't even in his way. He shot seven people the day he stole that military intel, five of them innocent bystanders. Including a college student, and a pregnant woman. He deserved what he got."

"No arguments there. I suppose I get a little tired of being the one to pull the trigger all the time. That's all."

He could sense his Quartermaster's thoughts almost as clearly as if he had spoken them out loud. To Q's mind, this was the whisky talking, as nobody at MI6 had ever heard Bond express any sort of remorse for shooting a dangerous opponent.

"Listen, 007. You're not the only one responsible for killing them. In a way, I and my crew are just as responsible. I walk you through some of your missions. I talk through your earpiece and tell you how to find them, and where, and how to get out once you've done it. So don't let yourself think that you have to carry all the weight."

"Thank you, Doctor Freud," Bond said in a deceptively amiable tone of voice. "And I suppose you were going to remind me that you make my weapons, too. My instruments of death."

"You're drunk, 007," murmured Q. His lips were pressed together in a thin line, but he also looked genuinely concerned as he fished in his luggage for a first aid kit. Then he padded over to the table against which Bond was leaning, and Bond didn't know whether to be amused, or annoyed, or perhaps something else, by the sight of his pale, slim Quartermaster wearing nothing but his glasses and a pair of boxer briefs, brandishing a roll of gauze bandage in one hand.

"I don't need any of that," Bond said, waving away the first aid kit. "I'll be fine."

"Lest you forget, 007," Q said quietly, but with determination, "I outrank you, technically speaking. So just sit down and let me deal with your injury. Unless you want to bleed all over your fancy hotel sheets, or pass out on the flight back to London."

Ordinarily, Bond did not take kindly to being told what to do by hotshot young whippersnappers relatively new to the job—the exception, of course, was when the instructions were being conveyed through an earpiece, with the purpose of getting him as far ahead of pursuit as possible. But he sat down with a docility that surprised himself almost as much as it surprised Q, and extended his arm, ripping at the bloodstained sleeve with his other hand.

"I'd almost forgotten," he said, examining the still-bleeding gash with interest, "that Midgard's weapon of preference was the stiletto."

"You should have that looked at," said Q, frowning. "By a doctor."

"It'll be fine, Q. I'll check in with Medical, once we're back at Headquarters. Can't go to hospital here. There's a man lying dead in Room 1420, and I turn up in the ER with a bleeding knife wound?"

It was Q's turn to roll his eyes as he extracted scissors, antiseptic, a tiny surgical kit, and a hypodermic needle from the first aid package. "The cut's not deep, for the most part, except here at the top, where the knife went in first…you'll need a few stitches, or it won't heal properly."

"Don't tell me the genius hacker is also a competent physician," Bond said, rather sarcastically. Really, it would be so much easier simply to drink himself into a state of woozy, pain-free semi-consciousness.

Q readied the hypodermic needle. "Of course I'm not, 007," he said calmly, and the barest hint of a smile seemed to be tugging at the corner of his wide, boyish mouth. "But this is hardly _brain surgery_. Now, then. A local anesthetic. Hold still."

"Forget that, I don't need it. Just carry on."

Q rolled his eyes for a second time. " _You_ may not need it, 007, but _I_ do. I don't want to have to worry about whether or not I'm hurting you, the entire time I'm stitching you up."

Bond shrugged resignedly, and sighed at the prick of the needle. As the dull throbbing in his arm faded, he leaned back in his chair and watched as Q knelt beside him and went to work with antiseptic-soaked cotton pads, needle, and thread.

"This is quite a novel experience for me," he said out loud, looking down at the disheveled cap of dark curls as Q tied the knot of the first stitch. "Having my wounds tended to by a naked boy on his knees, in the early hours of the morning."

"I'm not naked," Q said coldly, but his hands on Bond's arm remained gentle. "And I'm not a boy."

"Sorry," drawled Bond, grinning a little. Really, did Q have to be so bloody sensitive? "That was neatly done," he added, as Q tied off the final suture and sat back on his heels to examine his handiwork.

"When was the last time you had a tetanus injection?"

Bond frowned. "I get them on a regular basis. Standard procedure. Hand me that glass, would you?"

"I don't think you should have any more," Q said critically, narrowing his eyes at the bottle of Scotch. "It won't do you any good, in your present condition. Have some orange juice. That'll get your blood sugar in shape, without causing intoxication."

"Intoxication," muttered Bond, "is the entire point." He wrinkled his brow, but accepted the juice Q held out to him, and then submitted to being bandaged with much more cotton gauze than he considered necessary. Q was kneeling in front of Bond's chair again, and to Bond, his mind fuzzy with relief and fatigue, as much as with liquor, this suddenly seemed terribly suggestive. He felt his cock twitch, unexpectedly, and looked down to make certain Q hadn't noticed.

"Done," said Q abruptly, scrambling to his feet. (He couldn't have noticed anything, could he?) "I'll just be going back to my—"

"God no," Bond interrupted him, pulling off his shirt and gingerly discarding it, along with his ruined jacket. "Here you are, and here you should stay. At least for tonight."

"May I ask why that's necessary?"

"You're my alibi, of course," Bond said. "What do you think? If the authorities interview hotel guests tomorrow, it'll be clear that I spent the evening in this room, gallivanting in this bed with a pretty youth. And the youth will corroborate my statement, naturally."

"Anything else?" Q asked icily. His hands were clenched on the first aid kit, and he had flushed pink with irritation and embarrassment.

"If they ask you, you might attest to my prowess," Bond said modestly as he watched the flush deepen. "But perhaps that _would_ be a bit too much. Just say that no, I never stirred from your side all night. Listen, Q, there's no reason to look so horrified. This bed's massive." He yawned suddenly, as a wave of exhaustion washed over him. "Plenty of room. You needn't come anywhere near me. And now, I think we really need to sleep."

"Right," said Q shortly, walking around to the other side of the king-sized mattress. "But if you tell anybody at HQ about this, I'll wire your earpiece to play 'Gangnam Style' and 'Who Let the Dogs Out' _backwards_ , at top volume, the next time you're on a mission."

"Of course I'm not going to tell anybody," Bond said, exasperated. The anesthesia was beginning to wear off, and there was a decided ache in his upper arm. "Why so bloody worried? Is there some little boffin or boffinette in Q Branch who would be distraught to know that you'd shared a bed with me?"

"I don't answer questions about my private life, 007," replied Q in a quiet, clipped voice. "But you're quite right about one thing; we could both use some sleep."

"Don't bother to set the alarm," Bond murmured as he divested himself of his trousers and slid under the lofty duvet. "Good night, Q."

"Good night," said Q shortly, and switched off the light. Climbing into the bed, he twisted about, wrestling with the huge hotel pillows to prop them beneath his head, before subsiding and pulling the duvet up to his shoulders. To Bond, watching him in the dim half-light, he looked almost otherworldly and ethereal, all frail angles, a faint, pearl-like sheen to his pale skin, hair a dark tangle on the pillow. Seen this way, he could have been a mythological, magical creature, a faun, a Puck, an Ariel.

Strangely pretty. And, er, he did look eminently fuckable. Oh bloody hell, he really _was_ drunk.

This _was_ a novel experience, mused Bond as he crawled into his side of the bed. Moments later, he drifted into sleep, but not before he had to fight off the unexpected and _very_ novel desire to shift sideways against the warmth of his Quartermaster's slight young body, where it lay only inches from his own.

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MI6 agents rarely needed alarms, gongs, or whistles to wake them in the morning. Like most of his colleagues, Bond was well trained in the monitoring of his own internal clock, and he came awake, as planned, at 7:00, just in time to see his young companion sit up and stare with gloomy dismay at the curtain of rain just beyond the window.

"It's the typhoon," Bond said conversationally. "Our flight will be postponed."

Q had given an almost imperceptible start at the sound of Bond's voice, but he turned his head, hazel green eyes wide with consternation.

"Not for more than a day, I hope," he murmured as he ran both hands through his dark hair, making little difference to its general disorder. "I'll check local weather patterns online in a moment."

It entertained James Bond no end to watch his ordinarily cool and collected Quartermaster extricate himself from the bedclothes and edge his way self-consciously to the bathroom, keeping his hips turned away from the bed so as to hide the morning condition common to almost every man. His hair was sticking out in all directions as well as hanging down over his eyes; he looked a little like a greyhound, or a skittish yearling colt, with those long limbs, the ribs just showing through that pale olive skin, and Bond was astonished to feel a sudden rush of affection for him.

As he listened with half an ear to the sounds of Q splashing about in the shower, Bond mentally composed his report to HQ, something he did from habit after every mission. This accomplished, his mind turned to the typhoon, and what in bloody hell he and Q were supposed to do for the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours, stuck in a rain and wind-battered Kyoto. It was odd, he mused, the peculiar liking he had taken to the young man. He wasn't, generally speaking, given to feelings of affection for very many people. There was old Kincade, in Scotland, the sole remaining link to his childhood. The recently-deceased former M, for whom he had harbored a sense of loyalty mingled with respect, frustration, and an unspoken fondness. There was Felix Leiter in the States. He remembered his long-dead friend Quarrel, from Jamaica and that episode with Dr No. He quite liked and appreciated Eve Moneypenny, had a good rapport with Tanner. But that was nearly the extent of it.

His thoughts were interrupted by the click of the bathroom door being opened. Q emerged, towel wrapped round his narrow waist, and strode to the pile of his clothes on the nearby armchair. Reaching for the towel, he turned a sharp look on Bond, who had propped himself up on one elbow.

"For God's sake, Q, don't be such a girl," Bond said brusquely. "I'm not going to bloody watch you."

Q shot Bond another look, this time of intense annoyance, then simply dropped the towel and reached for the trousers he had hung neatly over the back of the chair. Bond made a show of turning his eyes away and focusing on the elaborate flower arrangement that stood on the sideboard, but he could see Q's reflection, plain as day, on the wide screen of the television that stood next to it.

There he was, lean—almost too lean—and delicately built, lithe and limber as he got into his clothes with an economy of motion. Slim flanks, and a backside the sculptors of ancient Greece would have been happy to use as a model. Bond suddenly recalled that several of his fellow operatives, male and female, had given Q's arse more than a cursory glance in the computer lab, or when they passed him in the halls of MI6.

Bond was somewhat taken aback to be thinking about these things; after all, he had never given a great deal of thought to men, in a sexual sense, and his experience in that area was rather limited. It had always been so easy to take his pleasure with the sultry, voluptuous females who offered themselves to him. They, and he, had indulged themselves, mutually and with a good will, and then gone their separate ways, with no regrets to speak of. He had admired their beauty, lusted after them, enjoyed their willing bodies. But for the most part it had been simply _fucking_. He had never felt the need to see these women again, and had usually left their beds before morning—not wanting to deal with any aspects of the aftermath: the whispered conversations at dawn, having to cobble together some sort of breakfast _à deux_ , the inevitable questions they might put to him about the future. And, with two exceptions, there hadn't been much in the way of real tenderness and caring on his part. Yet a strange sort of tenderness was what Bond was feeling now, watching his Quartermaster dress.

As he reached for the booklet containing Room Service breakfast menus, it occurred to him that two days in a hotel with the MI6 Quartermaster were going to prove more challenging than he had thought possible.


	3. What Q Did

**Chapter 3: What Q Did**

"So," said Q, looking at James Bond over the rim of his cup of steaming Earl Grey. "Your new flat."

Online weather reports had been grim, although Japanese meteorologists appeared to be in agreement about the duration of the typhoon. Flights from the closest international airport—in Osaka—would begin operating within one to two days. Having decided to make the best of an awkward situation, Q eyed Bond surreptitiously from behind his lashes and wondered how best to make conversation with him.

It didn't help that most of their previous verbal exchanges had consisted of rather barbed comments on the subject of age, competence, and whether or nor field agents were becoming obsolete—or explanations of whatever piece of tech Q was handing over to him. Or, during various missions, terse and precisely worded instructions, conveyed by Q to Bond via his earpiece. Q glanced at Bond's arm, its makeshift bandage, only faintly discernible through his robe, and then at his face, but 007's ice-blue eyes were focused on the newspaper brought up, along with breakfast, by the Room Service waiter an hour earlier.

It also didn't help that Bond, for all of his casual arrogance, his often infuriating self-confidance, was charismatic enough, or at least bloody attractive enough, to make the people he worked with at MI6 tend to ignore his less appealing qualities. The man was accustomed to being on the receiving end of admiration and awe, tributes that Q had consistently refused to deliver. Q mulled over the probability that many of his colleagues would envy him the time spent in 007's bed (if they ever found out about it), although nothing even vaguely erotic had happened between them. He himself had been making an effort to conceal his embarrassm—er, annoyance about the entire thing, and was grateful for having been too fatigued, the night before, to fantasize about the unusual state of affairs when Bond slid beneath the bedclothes next to him.

Q took a fortifying mouthful of tea, swallowed, and cleared his throat, trying not to think about what 007 had looked like in his swim trunks, on the edge of the rooftop pool, and what it had felt like when Bond kissed him (entirely against his will, of course) in the hallway by the lift. He had been bristly, his lips warm and firm, and it had been a very nice kiss, in spite of the fact that it was only for show.

Q cleared his throat again.

"Hmm?" Bond said, lowering the newspaper and raising his eyes. "Sorry…you were saying?"

"How's your arm?" Q began, and then stopped. "I mean, I was asking about your flat. But. Um. How does the arm feel?"

If Bond looked puzzled, it was because he wasn't accustomed to hearing either hesitation or confusion in his Quartermaster's voice. And because they had never really engaged in a discussion that didn't have something to do with MI6, malfunctioning tech, Bond's latest assignment, parallels between grand old warships and forty-something Double O agents, and Q's (nonexistent) spots.

"It's functional," he finally said, cautiously raising and lowering the appendage in question. "I congratulate you on a job well done. As for my new flat—"

A light tapping on the door interrupted him, and he rose to his feet, casting a wry look at Q as he went to answer it. Two men in dark suits were standing in the hall; they asked, very politely, in English, to be admitted, and Bond responded to their request in Japanese.*

They were plainclothes policemen—detectives, no doubt— and although they were courteous, and spoke quietly, it was apparent that they were tired of running through the same questions with the hotel's numerous guests. Bond spoke to them briefly, at one point indicating Q with a tilt of his head, and both men turned to look at him. Q stood still, adopting the calm, cool hauteur he displayed in the computer lab of Q Branch, and privately thinking that he must look a sight, his eyes reddened from lack of sufficient sleep, his hair in a more frightful disarray than usual.

Evidently satisfied with what Bond had told him, both detectives, or whatever they were, took their leave moments later. As they left the room, one of them, the younger, glanced quickly at the unmade bed, and then at Q, his eyes bright with surmise as they swept over him from head to toe.

Q bit his lower lip, and then silently consigned to perdition the late Mr Midgard, the Italian diplomat's wife, the Kyoto police force, and James Bond, in that order.

"I don't suppose you're going to tell me," he finally said, staring at the carpet, "what it was you said to those detectives,"

"No, I don't suppose I am," Bond replied mildly. "Q, have you got a waterproof bandage in that first aid kit of yours? I believe I could use a hot shower."

Q silently fetched the kit and unearthed a bandage of the proper size, while Bond slid his toweling robe off of his shoulders, pulling his arms from the sleeves and letting the robe fall to his waist. He unwound the gauze wrapped around his upper arm, but made no move to take the bandage, so Q stepped close to him and fastened the waterproof, gel-like strip over the stitched-up wound. Bond radiated body heat, like a compact furnace, and Q backed away from him as quickly as he could without being obvious about it.

"Thanks," Bond said as he headed in the direction of the bathroom, unfastening the belt of his robe as he went. "Check the airport status, would you? I'm hoping we can get out of here by tomorrow. And give a shout if somebody else comes knocking."

"Right," muttered Q, turning his head just in time to see 007 drop his hotel robe to the tiled bathroom floor and stride naked to the shower stall without bothering to shut the bathroom door…did the man have no sense of modesty whatsoever?

Q sat down on the edge of the bed, put his head in his hands, and resolutely counted to ten.

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By the time Bond emerged from the steam-filled bathroom, absently toweling his short blond hair, his Quartermaster had recovered both his poise and his temper, and was calmly reviewing data on his laptop. When his eyes weren't glued to the screen, he was looking hopefully at the windows, where the rain was still cascading down the glass like rivers of liquid silver in the odd, greenish light of the storm.

"Tomorrow's flight schedule should be back to normal," he announced, keeping his eyes averted as Bond dressed. "Fortunately, communication lines are open. I've got an encrypted message from HQ. You're to report as soon as our flight lands. Mallory, I mean, M, has an assignment for you."

"What, already?" Bond murmured as he fastened his trousers. "And you?"

"It goes without saying," Q replied dryly, "that I'm also expected at HQ immediately. Although I was promised two days off. It looks as if they'll have to wait."

"What, HQ?"

"No, the two days off," Q snapped, finally turning his head and noting, with a kind of relief, that Bond was fully dressed. He was wearing a casual but obviously expensive sweater, of a blue-green that made his eyes appear even bluer, rather than his usual impeccably pressed shirt, and Q noted that the MI6 Rolex he had labored over a week before was unscathed and clasped neatly round one tanned wrist.

"I haven't really been on this job long enough to merit a proper holiday, but—"

"You poor kid," Bond said unexpectedly, glancing from the laptop to Q. "You're a bit young to have your nose to the grindstone, twenty-four seven."

"I'm perfectly capable of fulfilling my duties," Q said coolly, but Bond only raised his eyebrows.

"I meant, it wreaks havoc with the social life, doesn't it?"

"The…" Q began, and then paused. Social life? There had been a time when he actually had one. At university, academically leagues ahead of his fellow students, he had been able to indulge in the sort of things students usually indulge in, although his keen, restless intelligence often kept him in the library or the computer lab long after most of his peers had fled to the pubs and clubs. Still, there had been friends, evenings out, good times. And now? Since being made Quartermaster for MI6, he had come to realize that the job meant constant work, dealing with constant challenges, constant pressure, long work hours, and a frustrating state of celibacy.

No wonder MI6, in the past, had almost always chosen older men, well into middle age, as Head of Q Branch.

"Get yourself laid," Moneypenny had told him, half in jest, before he left for Japan, and Q had snorted with indignation, even as his brain acknowledged that he might not mind doing just that. There had been relationships in his student days, plus some casual, recreational sex (admitted to university at the age of fifteen, he had lost his virginity a month before his seventeenth birthday), but for a long time now, there had been nothing. Lately, in the aftermath of the Raoul Silva affair, there had been, quite literally, not a minute to spare for the kind of socializing that might lead to intimacy, and Q had never been much for the one-off type of shag that an evening at the pub could conceivably lead to. On the weekends, which Q sometimes had off, he often fell into bed and slept for ten to twelve hours straight, his body's attempt to make up for the too-lengthy sessions in the Q Branch workshop or computer lab.

Realizing that he had been silent for some moments, Q raised his eyes to Bond's with a little shrug of apology, only to find that Bond was studying him with narrowed eyes.

"What?" asked Q, defensively, but Bond only gave a quirk of a half-smile.

"Look, the rain's letting up a bit," he said, cocking his head towards the window. Obediently glancing outside, Q noticed that the wind had also died down, as the trees planted neatly along the edge of the pavement were no longer bent at forty-five degree angles. "It should be alright to go outside tonight, eat something other than hotel food. In the meantime, I imagine you have work to do,"—he pointed at Q's laptop—"and I need to have a word with someone at the Japanese secret service."

Bond was reaching for his jacket as he spoke, sliding the Walther into its holster. "In case I need to contact you, I promise I'll use the secure encrypted line," he said, pocketing his mobile phone. "Well, I shan't be long…and this time, I mean it."

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By seven that evening the wind had died down to the point where it was possible to stand on the pavement without fear of being bowled over, or struck by debris or a staggering pedestrian. The rain had also lessened, and shortly before eight o'clock, Bond collared a reluctant Q and led him along narrow streets, past old wooden houses roofed with clay tiles, to a miniscule eatery only large enough to accommodate about a dozen people at the single counter. The interior was plain, even somewhat shabby, but Bond insisted that the food prepared in this family-run restaurant was truly exceptional.

As Bond ordered their meal and a round of beer, Q mulled over 007's earlier statement about his lack of a social life. To a large degree, it was accurate. Old friends from uni had mostly fallen away, as they and he had moved on into different careers, and although he kept in touch with some, their contact was primarily electronic, through emails and the like. It was only on rare occasions that he got together with somebody from his pre-MI6 days, for a drink or a dinner after work.

He had no close friendships within MI6, and had made it a point not to get particularly chummy with colleagues from any of the departments. However, he got on quite well with Moneypenny and Tanner, and his own Q Branch staff liked him enough to keep his Scrabble mug filled with hot Earl Grey at all hours, and address him conscientiously as "Sir," even while teasing him about the state of his hair. Moneypenny had a tendency to mother him a bit, though they were close in age, and in the stoic, poker-faced Tanner he had discovered a fellow Shakespeare addict. When Q made his periodic reports to M, and was inevitably kept waiting in the anteroom while Mallory played politics with some visiting official, he and Tanner would run through lines from their favorite plays, or argue over the merits of various actors. Once, when M's meeting with a minion from the PM dragged on for twenty-five minutes beyond schedule, they enacted the entire deposition scene from _Richard II_ , to the bemusement of Moneypenny, and the eventual astonishment of M, who opened his office door to find his right hand man and the Head of Q Branch having a kind of tug-of-war with his secretary's elastic hairband. ("It's meant to be a crown," Q attempted to explain, only to be met with a chilly stare and the words, "A pity, Miss Moneypenny, that I can't send them both to the Tower.")**

As for the Double O agents, Q had, by this time, worked with all of them in one way or another, either conveying instructions to them by electronic or verbal means, or arranging for extraction teams to retrieve them from whatever difficult or dangerous situation they happened to be in. They seemed to have gotten over their surprise at his youth and their doubts about his abilities, and all now addressed him with respect and varying degrees of friendly courtesy. All of them, that is, except for 007, who continued to snipe at him on a regular basis.

And now, he and 007 were sitting at a counter in a tiny restaurant, on a tiny Kyoto sidestreet, eating fresh tempura, made right before their eyes by the solitary chef on the other side of the counter, and drinking Japanese beer. They were surrounded by local salarymen, all of whom were chatting away cheerfully, with each other or on their mobile phones.

"I never did answer you about my flat, did I?" Bond was saying as he poured his Kirin into a tall glass. "I can't exactly complain; it's large enough. But most of my things are still unpacked. Lying about in cardboard boxes."

" _Still?_ Haven't you had the place for months?"

"Three," replied Bond calmly, capturing a crisp morsel of asperagus in his chopsticks. "But I can't say I spend much time there."

Q, whose jet lag had not quite dissipated, realized that maintaining a genuine, non-work related conversation with Bond in the flesh was much more difficult than talking to him via a comm link. Bugger.

"Moneypenny thinks you should hire someone to fix up your flat for you. You know, unpack, organize, decorate, and all that. What do you suppose she would say if she could see you now?"

"She would say, 'Fancy your spending a night out at a humble neighborhood tempura bar rather than a four-star restaurant, stone sober, and in the company of our Quartermaster.'"

"Yes, fancy your spending a night out without having to shoot or shag somebody," Q retorted.

"I actually do have a modicum of personal life, Q," Bond retorted good naturedly. "Even if it's only between missions. At least I don't live underground, glued to a computer console, with only technicians and mugs of tea for company, like some people I could name."

"Hanson says your missions _are_ your personal life," Q said desperately, because he felt himself to be running out of witty repartees. "And that she can't understand why you haven't been slapped with at least a dozen paternity suits."

Hedwig Hanson, a statuesque blonde who was secretary to the Head of Medical, was famous for her inability to govern, or censor, the rapid fire prattle that came out of her mouth. She patently adored the field agents, but had little time even to speak to the technology crowd—including skinny Quartermasters—unless forced to take down information about them for the Medical files. For all that, she was a popular girl, and Q had once caught Michaels, one of his star programmers, depositing a bouquet of flowers on her desk.

Bond was chuckling under his breath. "I'm bloody well short on cash; lend me some of your yen, would you? Paternity suits? What rubbish. Apparently Hanson knows nothing about the efficacy of modern day birth control."

"That's because Hanson has about three molecules of brain," replied Q, fishing in his wallet for yen. "You Double Os like her because she has generous subcutaneous deposits of adipose tissue in her frontal region."

"Showoff," Bond said, so gently that Q's eyes widened a little. "Just say she has big tits and have done with it, like everybody else. And yes, she does, and no, that isn't why all the Double Os like her. She happens to bake the most incredible chocolate biscuits, and is _very_ nice about sharing."

"Sharing what, her tits or the biscuits?"

"She insists we deserve extra special treatment," Bond responded, without answering the question. "Because any of us could, er, disappear during any given mission."

"Laying it on a bit thick, isn't she?" Q muttered, watching as Bond paid the bill. "It's obvious to everyone what she's after."

"It's obvious you're in a foul mood," Bond said. He was smiling, and Q could see him rolling his eyes. "For shame, Q. There are moments when you sound like a schoolboy. Here's your change; one doesn't leave tips in Japanese restaurants, remember?"

"Of course I remember," Q said stiffly, pocketing the crumpled bills. "And I'm not in a foul mood," he added mutinously. "I just…I'm just…"

"Sleep-deprived," Bond continued for him. "A usual state of affairs for you, I should think. Just finish your beer, there's a good fellow, and we'll be on our way. Hanson says you don't even remember to eat, and that's why you look so malnourished. She says one of the girls in Q Branch should take you in hand and force-feed you."

"She's masses of idiocy," grumbled Q into his beer.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Back in Bond's hotel room, 007 opened a new bottle of Scotch as Q packed his things into his luggage, and checked messages on his computer. He accepted a glass of Scotch with a splash of soda and ice—Bond was drinking his without either—and absently surfed online. He discovered an old obituary of the former M, saved to his hard drive, and brought up the accompanying photograph onscreen.

Bond looked at the image for a moment, his face unreadable, and then looked away as he offered Q another dollop of Scotch.

"Trying to get me drunk, are you?" Q joked, and was surprised to see the skin suddenly tighten along Bond's cheekbones, as though he had just clenched his teeth together.

"You get on well with Mall—with our new M, don't you?" Bond finally said in a noncommittal voice. "I know you were picked by…by his predecessor, but he seems to quite approve of your work."

"I can't help but think of him as Mallory," Q said, his speech a little blurry with drink and the remains of his jet lag. "I may have to address him as M, but he'll always be Mallory to me. And M will always be—" he waved his arm in the direction of the laptop screen, and promptly knocked over his glass.

The glass rolled slowly to the edge of the table and then over the edge. The thick hotel carpeting saved it from breakage, and it simply rolled a bit farther, the remains of the ice cubes tinkling cheerfully. Bond and Q made a simultaneous and ill-timed dive in its direction, and their skulls came together with a resounding clunk.

Bond reacted with a muffled grunt and sat down on the carpet very hard, but Q, who was seeing stars, yelled "Ow!" and then "Fuck!" as he went sprawling, the back of his head making solid contact with the leg of a chair.

"Ow," he said again, a little sullenly, as he sat back up, hands feeling for his ringing head. Feeling like an idiot wasn't something he was accustomed to, and it didn't help that Bond was grinning ruefully even as he rubbed his own brow. He realized that this was probably the first time 007 had heard him swear, and it was definitely the first time he had seen him even partially drunk.

They both stood up, Q gingerly feeling first his temple and then the back of his head. A moment later, Bond had him by the shoulder, and was carefully searching through his hair with his other hand.

"Stand still," Bond said a little impatiently, as Q tried to shrug him off. "You're going to be sprouting a lump the size of an egg in a minute."

"You needn't bother with that," Q mumbled, but Bond simply snorted.

"I can't possibly appear at HQ with a damaged Quartermaster in tow. They'll say it's my fault."

"It _is_ your fault," Q said thickly, trying to squirm away from 007's grip. "Your fault. The whisky. All that, um, beer. Whatever. Ow, bloody fuck!"

"Such language," said Bond, who was chuckling audibly. "Not the sort of thing I'm accustomed to hearing from you, Quartermaster. Stop wriggling, I can't possibly be hurting you." (His fingers, on Q's scalp, were now very gentle, and it wasn't pain that was making Q fidget and try to edge away.) "Fortunately for both of us, your cranium seems to be intact, although I imagine you'll have quite a bump there, come morning. Speaking of which, we should get some sleep. We'll need to be ready for our flight early; the lines will be terrible, given the storm."

"Right," Q replied, attempting not to sound sulky. He pulled away from Bond and went in search of his toothbrush, thanking the weather gods that this was the last night he would have to spend in 007's bed. Because the touch of those hands had set his senses quivering. It had been a long time, such a long time, since anybody had put so much as a finger on him, and 007… Well, everybody knew Bond was a man for women. Beautiful women, glamorous women. And if he occasionally entertained the notion of rolling about in bed with a male person, it was hardly likely that he would chose his spindly, un-glamorous Quartermaster to do such a thing with.

* * *

**Notes:**

* In the film version of "You Only Live Twice," Bond revealed that he had taken a First (First Class Honors) in "Oriental Languages" (now known as "Chinese Studies" and "Japanese Studies" within the Department of East Asian Studies) at Cambridge.

** In the 2012 filmed version of Shakespeare's _Richard II_ , King Richard was played by Ben Whishaw, Bolingbroke by Rory Kinnear (Tanner). The entire deposition scene, in which Richard loses his crown to Bolingbroke, can be found on youtube, and is worth a watch. I am grateful to apiphile's superb Q/Tanner fic, "The Long Haul," archiveofourown dot org slash works slash 733810?view_adult=true for reminding me of this.


	4. What Bond Thought

**Chapter 4:  What Bond Thought**

After they returned to London, Bond didn’t go anywhere near Q Branch for two weeks.

“I hear everything went well,” Moneypenny had said, as he walked into the anteroom to M’s office. “Except for—” She cocked an eye at Bond’s bandaged arm. “And the Quartermaster stitched you up?”

“He did indeed,” Bond replied shortly. Q had already vanished into the depths of the bunker, where his department was still temporarily housed. “Is Mallory ready to see me?”

“A lovely, clever boy is our Q,” Moneypenny continued, smiling with a proprietary air that made Bond think of a mother hen. “He’s never traveled overseas with a field agent before; you were his first.”

“Really,” said Bond, not a little disconcerted by her choice of words. “Is Mall…I mean M, ready to—”

There was a gentle click as M’s office door opened halfway; Tanner, his face calm and unreadable as usual, stood in the opening.

“M will see you now, 007,” he said crisply, his impassive features suddenly breaking into a half-smile. “Your old friend from the Japanese secret service rang us up,” he added in a low voice so that only Bond could hear. “You know. Tiger Tanaka. He was rather intrigued when local police informed his people that the English businessman they’d been instructed _not_ to investigate for the Midgard homicide spent two days in his hotel room, canoodling with an attractive boy, er, young man. Tanaka didn’t give them your identity, of course, but he was extremely curious. Said he didn’t think that was quite your style.”*

“Q was very useful as my alibi,” Bond retorted. “It’s all in my report. Anyway, there was no _canoodling_ involved. Surely you lot don’t think I’d be so lost to decency and reason as to ravish our Quartermaster.”

Tanner gave a short, involuntary bark of laughter that he promptly turned into sneeze, for the benefit of M, within. “We’ve never had a young Quartermaster before,” he said under his breath. “And as for the previous ones...I hardly think you, or anybody else, would have harbored any designs on old Major Boothroyd.”

“Now there’s another irritating thing,” Bond replied, also under his breath. “Precisely when did MI6 decide to make its Quartermasters’ names and identities classified information? Q knows my name, but I damn well don’t know his.”

“Blame the advent of cyber terrorism,” Tanner said, shrugging. “Blame the need for total secrecy. Yes, most of us knew old Geoffrey’s name, even if we never called him by it. But now—“

“007,” came M’s impatient voice from the depths of his office. Aware that Moneypenny was all ears on the other side of her desk, Bond sighed and adjusted his jacket, straightening his cuffs.

“Well,” Tanner said dryly, poker-faced once again as he held the door open further. “It’s good to know your alias went undetected by the Kyoto police.”

Bond rolled his eyes and sighed again as he stepped forward into M’s office.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

“We’ve never had a young Quartermaster before,” Tanner had said, and the fact of the matter was that, regardless of their age, Bond had never spent much time with the previous ones. He had watched them demonstrate the capability and use of their various inventions, received their proffered gadgets, and left. Yes, he and old Geoffrey Boothroyd had maintained a congenial, if prickly, working relationship, but it had rarely extended beyond the office walls. During the three days and two nights he had spent in Kyoto for the Midgard affair, he had gotten to know the new Head of Q Branch better than he had known Major Boothroyd over a span of at least a decade.

Having spent time—however briefly—in such close quarters with young Q had made Bond conscious of a number of things he had had no awareness of, earlier. In his computer lab and workshops at HQ, the Quartermaster was cool, steely-eyed and focused, he carried his very lean frame with a calm self-assurance; his movements, like his soft-voiced, authoritative speech, were precise. In Kyoto, outside of work, however, the quiet assertiveness he displayed at MI6 appeared to vanish. Instead, he had exhibited a touch of shyness and appealing hesitancy that Bond suspected nobody at MI6 was ever permitted to see. Perhaps, Bond mused, Q was something of an introvert when outside of the work environment. As Q skimmed the English-language newspapers thoughtfully provided by the hotel, his long, elegant fingers had fiddled with the hem of his cardigan or beat a staccato rhythm against the tabletop, or pulled at his hair. Later, when he glanced through the window at the rain beating ferociously against the glass, he had frowned restlessly and fidgeted, twisting one leg round the other, like an impatient child.*

In retrospect it had been rather charming.

Admittedly, Bond had been somewhat charmed by Q since their initial meeting at the National Gallery. After an inauspicious and doubtful first few minutes—he had thought that the anorak-clad young man who sat down so unexpectedly on the bench next to his was a university student on the prowl for older sex partners—and after the snarky backtalk that followed, he had found Q both interesting and intriguing. Once the new Quartermaster had proved his worth, his uncanny mastery of cyberspace, and his quirky intellectual brilliance, Bond had grown to enjoy his sporadic company, although he was careful not to let Q see it. The verbal fencing, the occasional flashes of humor, the dry, backhanded compliments they exchanged certainly helped keep him in a state of constant mental alertness.

The two weeks of avoiding Q Branch and its Quartermaster should have been more than enough time for him to rid himself of this odd preoccupation, Bond told himself abruptly. He had a piece of tech that needed to be seen to, and it would have been silly to ask somebody else to deliver it in his place.

“You’ve been quite a stranger, sir,” Manuelli, one of Q’s underlings, said to him when he finally strode into the white, brilliantly lit space with his distress-signal radio, whose miniscule antenna had snapped off.

The new Quartermaster had had the political wisdom to keep the previous Q’s old timers in the department, giving them senior status for their past work on MI6’s behalf.  However, the people he himself had recruited after being brought on board were young, up-to-date computer geeks, skilled hackers, and electronics specialists, with whose work he had become familiar before the late M had tapped him for his present position. These new employees now made up the main body of the Q Branch staff. (Bond had learned all of this from Moneypenny, during a Friday evening drink with her and Tanner, at a bistro not far from HQ.) Manuelli was one of the new, young boffins, smart as a whip, pretty, and rather saucy, who watched over her department head’s well-being with an almost sisterly concern, and made certain that the computer lab’s supply room was always well stocked with Earl Grey.

“I’ve been rather busy,” Bond replied, dropping the little radio into her outstretched hand. “Just give that to Q, will you, when he has a moment.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, and Bond realized, to his mild chagrin, that she had caught him looking round the cavernous room for a glimpse of her boss. “He’s gone to see M, sir,” she added helpfully, watching him from the corner of her eye, a little smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

These young boffins were too sharp by half. Bond took care to keep his face immobile and his expression composed, before leaving the computer lab behind and heading to the shooting range, where he proceeded to take out his frustration on a series of hapless cardboard targets.

The night before, he had relieved his frustration by taking a very willing Hedwig Hanson to bed. Her bed, to be precise, not his. Fucking her halfway senseless had been a pleasurable experience, certainly, but hardly a tonic for what was ailing him. And what was ailing him wasn’t really clear. At least there was no need to worry about Hanson; she wouldn’t take the incident for anything more than it had been, a one-time encounter fueled by drink and casual lust. Other MI6 employees had been recipients of her bosomy favors in the past, and he wasn’t likely to be the last of them.

Unfortunately, Hanson’s ministrations—the rumors about her voracious appetite and talented tongue had not been exaggerated—had done little to dissipate Bond’s growing interest in the youthful Head of Q Branch. Why, precisely, his thoughts had become so fixed on his Quartermaster had been nagging at him since their return from Kyoto. He couldn’t quite understand it, but he couldn’t put it aside either. Bond, as a man of action, usually managed to avoid introspection about his past or present personal life. However, it had become clear to him that, as much as he found his verbal sparring with Q entertaining, his attraction to MI6’s super-boffin was also physical. If it had been anyone else, a savvy, hard-edged young woman of Hanson’s type, for example, he would have known what to do.  But Q was nothing like Hanson, or any of the hot-eyed females, ripe with sexual arrogance, who comprised her group of MI6 cronies. Q was intense, professional, and sensitive, and not likely to appreciate being treated like some Double O agent’s flavor of the month. 

James Bond did not enjoy being perplexed when it came to matters of the senses. (He never said matters of the heart.) 

It was a new and peculiar sensation, this persistent physical craving for someone of his own gender, moreover, someone much younger than himself, a person he worked with on a regular basis and had admittedly grown to like (in spite of their edgy banter). Bond’s own sexual experience with men was so limited that he could probably count instances on the fingers of one hand: the usual experimental fumblings with a classmate or two in the days when he was a boarder at an all-boys’ school, a few obligatory, soulless fucks in the line of duty, with male informants, since joining MI6. He had never put more effort into these encounters than he deemed necessary, although his performance appeared to have been at least adequate. (In any event, there had been no complaints.) He had felt no real passion for them, but what he was feeling now, for his Quartermaster, could only be described as genuine desire, clamoring to be fulfilled. As for what Q himself felt, Bond had a vague suspicion that he might not be as indifferent as he seemed. The gods only knew that James Bond, 007,  had had sex with more than enough women to recognize the look that came into their eyes when they wanted him, and Q’s own eyes, after their one kiss, had displayed exactly that look: pupils gone wide and dark, a little unfocused, and slightly misted over.

Not that there was a clear-cut solution to any aspect of this dilemma.

The romp with Hanson hadn’t been an effective tension tamer after all. Bond began visiting the shooting range for target practice on a regular basis, to the approval of M, who had no notion of why he was doing it.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Both field operatives and desk-bound staff of the secret service were fully conscious of the hothouse atmosphere of MI6. They were, after all, a group of driven and intelligent people crammed together in relatively close quarters, under constant pressure, with an unrelenting work schedule—that kept nearly everybody employed there tense and intensely focused. It also guaranteed that many of its personnel used sex as a tension reliever, sometimes with each other, and always outside of the workplace (it would have been risky and unprofessional to indulge within the precincts of the secret service). A strict office protocol was maintained during the day, but there was quite a lot of subtle flirting, some of it playful, some of it serious, that Mallory had the good sense to overlook unless it got in the way of business. A handful of the Double Os were hardcore sexual desperados, indulging themselves as if there were no tomorrow, which in their case was entirely possible. And although staff were not forbidden to pursue romance with fellow employees, it was not considered particularly prudent, and relationships between MI6 employees were usually conducted on the sly.

Bond didn’t think that Q was having a relationship with anybody at MI6. And he spent so much of his time there that it was unlikely he was having a relationship with anybody _outside_ of MI6.

On the other hand, it wasn’t as though nobody but himself had noticed the appeal of Q’s fluty voice and elfin good looks, combined with his fierce and focused intelligence. A number of the young women in Q Branch clearly idolized him, and there were a few men—more than one in the Double O section—who appeared to find him attractive. (008 was the most obvious of these.) So far, their attempts to flirt with him had come up against a brick wall; Q was courteous but businesslike. As everybody could not help but be aware, he was eminently correct, organized, and disciplined, even if his working relationship with 007 was rife with snarky backtalk and sarcastic banter, Q’s share of which was delivered in his precise, quite voice. This voice, with its oh-so-beautifully enunciated instructions, its posh accent, was beginning to have an effect on Bond, every time it echoed softly through his earpiece. It was frustrating, he acknowledged to himself, to follow escape route directions when the voice reeling them off into his ear was also providing him with a very inconvenient sensation in another part of his anatomy.

It was terribly difficult to run, or even concentrate, with a partial erection crushed against the front of his trousers. He had started to wonder whether it might not be better to request technical assistance from another member of Q Branch, but abandoned the idea. He was not going to let Q, or anyone else, see how those crystal-clear consonants and nicely rounded vowels were getting to him. What’s more, he wasn’t going to leave the field clear for 008, whose interest in Q was showing no signs of abating.

Last but unfortunately not least—and this was truly mortifying—he realized that he wanted to hear that voice whispering instructions that were nothing like the ones he usually heard through his earpiece, then moaning his name, calling on him to come, _oh, yes, yes, now_ , and all in that bloody precise and perfect diction.

Which god had he offended, that this should be happening to him?  
  
"It's good to see you're putting in time on your marksmanship," 008 said in a rather snide voice as they passed each other in the hallway that led to the shooting range.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

After another week or so had passed, Bond decided that a change of tactics was in order.

He was growing tired of the nagging ache that materialized, low in his belly, when he passed by Q Branch and glanced through the glass at the Quartermaster, cool and silent on the other side of the room, typing lines of code into his laptop or squinting at a printout one of his staff had just handed to him. Bond now took to stopping in on a fairly regular basis, to the extent that Q’s staff had begun to exchange looks every time he appeared in their screen-laden, antiseptically white space. He always arrived with a perfectly good excuse: the tracker Q had given him during the last assignment was malfunctioning; the handgrip on his Walther needed adjusting, or the trigger was loose.

Q would simply sigh and accept the problematic piece of tech without comment. He couldn’t have had any inkling of how much tinkering Bond had had to do, in the privacy of his new flat, to get that bloody trigger to come loose.

Once, he walked into Q Branch straight from a debriefing with M and Tanner, still rumpled and bruised from ramming his car into the van being driven by an ex-Mafia hitman, who had gone to work for a shadowy organization specializing in the theft of state secrets and political blackmail. Bond had followed him from a black tie dinner to the stone bridge where he habitually met with his handlers, and his own dinner jacket (for he had arranged to attend the same event) was now torn and stained beyond repair. Amazingly, the blue cornflower in his buttonhole was still intact, as were his firearm and his earpiece. Q was not there, although there was a steaming mug of Earl Grey on his workstation, and none of his minions could enlighten Bond as to his whereabouts. Bond shrugged philosophically, and when he left his undamaged tech on Q’s desk, he left the cornflower with it.

He could see some of the Q Branch staff eyeing him a bit askance as he left the computer lab, but didn’t much care. He told himself that this was a game he was playing, fascinating and unpredictable, and it didn’t matter to him if Q’s staffers thought him peculiar, or predatory, or simply off his head. He was well aware that he had a reputation as a wild card, as an agent of ruthless, if heartless, charm, and as an inveterate and relentless womanizer. Perhaps that last thing was just as well. Bond could tell that Q was well-liked by his underlings, and that it wasn’t only Moneypenny who felt protective of the young and defenseless-looking Quartermaster. Who wasn’t defenseless, not really, but he certainly looked that way. How fragile, waiflike, and desirable he had appeared, in that Kyoto hotel bedroom, without his clothes!

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

“Thank you for the flower, 007,” Q said calmly, the next time they were face to face.  “And how considerate of you to return your equipment in good condition.”

“That was the easy part.”

Q gave an almost inaudible snort. “Why do I find it so difficult to believe you?”

Bond essayed an ironic grin, but his gaze fastened on the stray curl forming a kind of question mark against his Quartermaster’s pale brow. He restrained the urge to brush it back, or tuck it behind Q’s ear with careful fingers.

“Is there something amiss with my left eye, 007?”

“No, why do you ask?”

“You’re staring at it,” Q said coolly.

“M wants to see you, 007,” Moneypenny called from the doorway, and Bond made his escape without replying. It was disconcerting, to be made to feel so off-balance by a boy—well, not a boy, not really, but all the same—who might be a good fifteen years his junior.

James Bond wasn’t used to this sort of thing. Since Vesper, he couldn’t remember the last time he had actually _courted_ someone. Then again, he couldn’t remember the last time he had wanted to.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

“Salzburg,” M said calmly, tossing the dossier across his desk. “In five days.”

“A shame it isn’t ski season,” murmured Bond, picking it up. Flipping through the pages within, he recognized the photograph clipped to the inside cover. One of Raoul Silva’s henchmen from that ramshackle, deserted island off of Macau.

“He escaped the dragnet,” M said musingly, fingers tented beneath his chin. “Now the Americans tell us that he’s made overtures about turning himself in. He claims to have information that could prove useful to us. I’m skeptical, but we have at least to hear him out. The usual method will do, for getting him out of Austria, and we’ll send a plane and medical technician when you’re ready. Just see the Quartermaster before you leave. I believe he already has everything you’ll be needing.”

“Yes, sir,” Bond responded, thinking to himself that this was too bloody well true.

As Bond slid the dossier into his attaché case, M cleared his throat.

“You’re quite settled into your new flat? Miss Moneypenny tells me some of your things were still in storage, so I’ve taken the liberty of having them delivered to you.”

“Thank you,” Bond said, although he was anything but thankful. “I’ve got quite a collection of unopened boxes strewn about the flat already.”

“I suppose,” Mallory replied, eyebrows raised, “you expect me to commission half my staff to help you unpack.”

“That would be extraordinarily helpful, sir,” Bond replied affably, knowing that this would leave him open to a royal bollocking. “I can’t think of anything better.”

“Well, you can think again,” Mallory said in a taut voice, and Bond couldn’t tell whether he was genuinely angry or trying not to laugh. “Your colleagues have more pressing matters to deal with than your housekeeping issues. That will be all, 007.”

* * *

 

**Is this getting too wordy? If so, please tell me. The smut is coming, I promise.**

***Tiger Tanaka was head of the Japanese secret service in the novel and film, “You Only Live Twice.”**


	5. Mind Games

**Chapter 5: Mind Games  
**

"I've been pressed into service," Moneypenny said, her voice sounding faint and tinny through Q's laptop speaker. She was contacting him via MI6's audio-visual communication system, a kind of closed-circuit version of Skype, and Q could see her casting her eyes at the ceiling as she adopted a martyred expresson. "Conscripted, so to speak. Bond's calling in all of his favors."

"What do you mean?" Q muttered, reaching for his Scrabble mug, and squinting at her image over the top of his glasses. "What favors?"

"Double Oh Bloody Seven is ringing up those of us who owe him a favor, for whatever reason. He says we can pay him back by helping him unpack his stupid, bloody storage boxes."

"Well, he hasn't asked me, and I don't owe him any favors. If anything, he owes me one."

"Oh, really?" Moneypenny asked, brightening up with curiosity. "What for?"

"Mmmph," said Q, closing his lips on what he had been about to say, which was: _for playacting the part of his bed companion, during the Midgard affair in Kyoto._ "Um. For stitching up his injury in Kyoto, last month. Who else is going?"

"Tanner," replied Moneypenny. "I don't mind that; he's rather a love. A pity he's a married man. Now Q, be a dear and come with us. It'll get things done that much faster if there are three of us."

"Don't you mean four?" Q said _,_ rather acidly. "Or is the almighty 007 going to sit on his arse and tell us what to do?"

There was a rustling behind him, amongst the Q Branch staff. "Did he just say something about 007's arse?" he heard Patil whisper, and Michaels said, "Shhhhh!" very loudly to cover the sound of giggles.

"I promised we'd be at his flat by eight."

"We? I never said I was going."

"Oh, _come on_ , Q, it'll be fun if we _all_ go. And I told him I'd ask you."

"Eight? What about dinner?"

"Is he asking Miss Moneypenny out for dinner?" Albery said in a stage whisper, and Q could hear Manuelli muttering "Tsk, tsk, tsk."

"Will they go back to hers or his, after?" Patil asked of no one in particular.

"We'll get Chinese takeaway," Moneypenny was saying. "Or Indian."

Q sighed. "We can find one or the other on the way to 007's flat."

"It's a threesome," Manuelli said in tones of elation, and then subsided as Q turned round and glared balefully at the entire room.

"I don't suppose any of you realize," the Head of Q Branch said with deceptive mildness, "that my hearing is extremely acute."

"Must be quite inconvenient, sir," murmured Michaels with a sorry attempt at an innocent smile. "And that wasn't me talking, before, it was Angela." He indicated Manuelli with a jerk of his chin.

Manuelli hurled a crumpled up paper cup at Michaels' head.

Q turned back to Moneypenny, who appeared to be waiting with her hands on her hips. "You're driving, then. I'll meet you at the corner, at half past seven." He closed the comm screen and returned to his coding, typing out line upon line for the next fifteen minutes, as his underlings muttered and grumbled and clattered away on their keyboards.

At twenty minutes past seven, he straightened up and rubbed his eyes. A number of his minions had already departed, to make way for the evening shift. Others were still there, diligently decoding, or working on specs for as-yet-unfinished surveillance devices or weaponry.

"If there's an emergency and anybody needs to contact me," Q said casually, shutting down his laptop, "ring my mobile. I'll be at, er, 007's new flat for an hour or two."

This statement was met with silence, but also an exchange of looks among members of his staff.

"Does 007 fancy you then, sir?" Manuelli piped up, and several staffers bit their lips to keep from sniggering.

"Oh, for God's sake," snapped Q, scowling as he reached for his cardigan. "If you suppose I'm keen to have an orgy with 007, Moneypenny, and Tanner, you'd better think twice. Because that's whom I'll be with. You lot are all oversexed. Good night!"

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"I've never seen such a mess" Moneypenny announced scornfully, wiping her forehead with the back of one dusty hand. "My mum always told me that men have some genetic defect when it comes to making order out of this sort of thing."

With her other hand, she gestured at the dozen or so newly opened cardboard boxes that were filled with a jumble of clothes, books, and home appliances.

"Excuse me?" Bond said, frowning. It was now past midnight, on a Friday, when by all rights a good portion of the MI6 personnel should have been drinking themselves into a cheerful stupor at some moderately upscale pub. "I didn't pack any of this, my girl, and you know it. My old flat was sold, and my things flung into these boxes and put in storage, when I was presumed dead because a former field agent took the bloody sho—"

"Alright, stop, stop," she interjected, waving both hands frantically. "Tanner, would you pour me a bit more of that excellent vodka?"

Tanner obliged, as Q took the opportunity to sit down and survey the chaos that was James Bond's recently acquired flat. He, Tanner, and Moneypenny were now covered with dust and woefully knackered after an evening of helping 007 go through what looked like the detritus of a lifetime. There were quantities of books, old LP recordings, newer music CDs, and plastic garment-bags filled with exercise clothing, expensive looking but unmatched socks, and Savile Row suits. Not to mention some cookware—which Q was willing to bet 007 had never used—a few good quality framed lithographs and sketches, and some (antiquated, in Q's opinion) computer parts. A pile of things to be tossed out stood by the door, and the portion of polished wood floor that wasn't covered with overflow from the boxes was scattered with the discarded cartons of their Chinese takeaway.

Recent acquisitions, which had _not_ been in the boxes, included a small but state-of-the-art sound system, an MI6-issue laptop (assembled by Q), and a flat screen television of moderate size. A set of free weights. No photograph albums. Apparently Bond had little interest in dwelling on his past.

Tanner extended the vodka bottle in Q's direction, and he waved it away.

"I've had more than enough," he said, shoving his hair back from his brow. Like Tanner, he had shed his tie, and opened his shirt at the neck, and Moneypenny had pulled her crisp curls back from her face with an elastic band. "Any tea coming?" he asked without much hope as Bond slid an unopened bottle of Scotch into view.

"What I can't believe," Moneypenny said in a plaintive voice, "is that we're the only people who owe you any favors."

"003 does," Bond replied, grimacing a little as he rotated his shoulders. "But he's in Peru. And Hanson owes me, but I thought we might function better without her presence."

Both Moneypenny and Q rolled their eyes and frowned; only Tanner, ever professional and fair-minded, managed to avoid looking disdainful.

"008 as well," Bond added in a thoughtful voice. "But he'd be livid with jealousy if he knew I'd managed to lure our Quartermaster to my lair."

"For pity's sake, 007," Q said sharply, feeling himself flush. "I hardly think—"

"However," Bond continued, "I believe this is quite enough for one night. I'm grateful for your assistance; we've made a lot of headway with this—" he waved a hand at the opened boxes, just as Moneypenny practically dove into one of them, and removed something carefully held between her thumb and forefinger.

"No, James, really. A _pickle_?"

"A what?" said Bond absently, turning from a stack of pressed, plastic-wrapped shirts.

"It's a pickle, James," Moneypenny said again, extending her arm. From her fingers dangled a plastic zip-locked evidence bag, in which what had once been a run of the mill cucumber pickle was disintegrating into mush.

Bond made gestures of ignorance, but Moneypenny, whose mouth was now wobbling dangerously, waved the object in the air for the perusal of the others.

It was obvious to Q that his companions were, by this time, more than a little woozy and silly with exhaustion and a goodly amount of expensive vodka. The unflappable, stone-faced Tanner was now very nearly snorting with mirth behind his hand.

"I don't know why the packers saved it," Bond said dryly, removing the evidence bag from Moneypenny's grasp and tossing it onto the pile destined for the dustbin. "Perhaps they thought it was a surveillance device. Although it's clearly a genuine but practically _prehistoric_ pickle."

"How appropriate," Q said in his snarkiest manner, still thoroughly annoyed by Bond's reference to 008, and both Moneypenny and Tanner eyed their host to see how he would react. But Bond merely shrugged his shoulders.

"I'm just waiting," he said philosophically, "for our Quartermaster to hand me a dart-shooting wheelchair, or a cane that fires heat-seeking missiles, the next time I walk into his underground domain."

"I _am_ thinking of modifying your earpiece to pull double duty as a hearing aid," Q said in a voice of acidic sweetness.

His comment was met with hiccups of suppressed laughter from everybody but Bond, who rolled his eyes and smiled good-naturedly. But his glance, when it met Q's, was alight with a spark that Q found difficult to interpret. Perhaps he had gone too far with the age jokes? Although that seemed unfair, as he had been putting up with Bond's sarcastic comments about his youth since the day they met, for fuck's sake.

"They do say that hearing is among the first things to go," Bond said lightly. "Although mine's still excellent, thanks very much. Nearly everything I could do ten years ago, I'm still capable of today."

"Most men," said Moneypenny, whose sense of tact had obviously succumbed to the vodka, "are capable of _certain things_ only _once_ per evening. When they're past forty, that is."

"Is this conclusion based on an empirical study?" Bond murmured, patting her on the shoulder in a comradely fashion. "How many men past forty did you investigate? Because I can assure you, it's not true in my case."

"Right," said Q, with flat disbelief.

Bond focused his brilliant blue stare on his Quartermaster's face. "I'm perfectly willing to give a practical demonstration."

"Ahem," said Tanner, looking from one to the other with bleary-eyed exasperation. "Just how did we get onto this absurd subject? And could we change it, please? MI6 personnel do not give demonstrations of their sexual, uh, stamina in public. I'd hate to have to report any of these disturbing revelations to M."

"Who said anything about it being in public?" Bond replied, and Moneypenny giggled, while Q pretended to have gone suddenly deaf.

"M's impressed with the way your marksmanship scores have improved," Tanner went on hastily, with an expression that said he hadn't a clue as to why Bond and the Quartermaster were so intent on needling each other, but that he wanted it to stop. "It's quite dramatic, really."

"Solely a matter of practice," Bond stated calmly. "And what about the younger generation? I rarely see any of your minions at the firing range, Q."

"In Q Branch we're not required to maintain a high level of proficiency with firearms," Q said composedly. "However," he added with just a touch of smugness, "I did score an eighty on my last marksmanship test."

"Oh, really," said Bond in a casual voice, but the others could see the muscles in his shoulders tensing, as if he were a tiger about to spring. "And how are you with hand-to-hand combat?"

"It's not exactly my strong point," Q replied in a self-deprecating manner, one hand gesturing at his own thin, lissome self. "But I'm not totally helpless in that regard. I've been given a few pointers. Remember Liang?"

"Yes," said Bond after a brief pause. "You mean…kung fu?"

He gave Q an appraising glance, as if a small and scrawny domestic housecat had suddenly revealed itself as a leopard.

They all remembered Patricia Liang, slender, petite, and trained in martial arts since childhood, who had spent three weeks at MI6 to put the Double Os through their paces. Liang's enticing almond eyes, rope of black hair, and her long, slim neck that was not unlike the Quartermaster's, had spawned a number of rather inappropriate remarks on the part of 003, before she sent him sprawling across the floor mat of the workout room. In fact, she had left nearly half of the Double O agents sprawled across the floor, in a sadly humiliated state, towards the end of their initial training session.

"So," said Moneypenny in an encouraging voice. "You did some training with her, then?"

"Only a little," said Q modestly. "I mean, I'd be no match at all for a field agent. Certainly not a Double O. Not that any of them are likely to assault me." And then he turned red, and swiped unconsciously at his hair, a habit his staff at Q Branch had come to recognize as a sign of consternation or embarrassment.

"Hmm," murmured Bond in an unreadable voice.

"Really, I'm not very good," Q insisted. "That is. Um. Barely adequate."

"Whether you have fighting skills or not should have no effect on your promising career in espionage," Bond said, speaking in Q's general direction, "You can rest assured that the former M chose you strictly on the basis of ability in your field, and not for the sake of your physical capabilities, or your pretty eyes, for that matter."

Q made an indignant noise, but the look that passed between Moneypenny and Tanner did not go unnoticed by him.

"What?" he said sharply, but Moneypenny had suddenly turned her attention to her powder compact, and Tanner was studiously examining the label on Bond's bottle of Scotch.

"Even Hanson thinks they're pretty," Bond continued, ignoring both the looks and Q's indignation. "And we all know how she feels about the staff of Q Branch."

"They're a lovely color," Moneypenny said, glancing from Bond to Q and then back at Bond again. "Greeny. Greenish. Why hide them behind glasses, Q? Have you ever thought of contact lenses?"

" _No_ , I have _not_ ," Q replied adamantly, standing up and brushing himself off. "Well, 007, at least you now know what's in your storage boxes. You can put your possessions in order, and this place will actually be livable." Looking at the wall facing him, he could see both Bond and himself reflected in the mirror that was hanging there, and it was obvious that if forced into hand-to-hand combat with 007 (a highly unlikely scenario), he would never stand a chance.

The mirror flung the reflection back at him like a challenge. Bond—damn him!—was trim yet athletic, with a musculature that was well-defined but not bulky, whereas Q, standing beside him, looked almost insubstantial, fragile and wiry, in his white shirt, minus the tie, and jeans. The contrast was made all the more remarkable by Bond's strong, striking features (although Q noted with malicious pleasure that he had ears reminiscent of a Tolkien elf)* and Q's own narrow, high-cheekboned face with its straight brows and ski-jump nose, Bond's short, straw-colored hair and Q's gravity-defiant dark locks.

Of course, Q had also seen Bond without his clothes, but as memorable (and gaze-worthy) as the sight had been, he wasn't going to tell Tanner and Moneypenny about _that_.

"If I weren't so exhausted, I'd say we all deserve another drink," Moneypenny announced as she, Tanner, and Q exited Bond's flat and waited, yawning, for the lift. "And thank God Bond didn't ask Hanson to join us this evening. I don't think I could have borne it."

"She's a one-man, that is, a one-woman cheering section for the Double Os," Q replied sleepily. "And drapes herself all over them whenever they're in her vicinity."

"Whereas she barely deigns to acknowledge me, when we're in the same room," said Moneypenny grimly. "That bi—that woman is singularly lacking in team spirit."

It was clear to Q that Moneypenny disliked Hanson as much as he did.

"I'll just pretend I haven't heard any of this, shall I," Tanner murmured resignedly.

"Hanson says the programmers and gadget inventors in Q Branch are a bunch of nerds and geeks with no real blood in their veins," Moneypenny drawled. "She only has eyes for the muscle-y action-hero type. And of course she thinks 007 is a god."

"Stupid cow," Q mumbled as he struggled with the zip of his anorak.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The day before James Bond's departure for Salzburg, Q received word that he was to supply him with the equipment he would need, that very afternoon. Which was frustrating, because it was becoming increasingly obvious that 007 was playing mind games with him.

These consisted, for the most part, in the way Bond stood directly behind him, and very close, when Q was trying to show him something of vital importance on his laptop screen, and the way he addressed Q in a low voice, forcing the Quartermaster to lean towards him in order to make out what he was saying. Occasionally, he touched Q's arm or shoulder, lightly, with his fingertips, in order to get his attention.

Perhaps, Q mused sourly, Bond was practicing seduction techniques on his colleagues at MI6, male as well as female, to be certain they hadn't gone rusty. Not that he knew all that much about Bond's seduction techniques, save for what he had heard (and Q winced at the memory) from time to time over his earpiece.

Quite coincidentally, Moneypenny raised the subject of Bond's remarkable success rate in that regard, when he joined her for a quick cup of tea in the staff canteen. Q took it for granted that she knew what she was talking about, given her past intimacy with 007, and the fact that she was one of the few people at MI6 who sometimes addressed him as "James."

"I felt sorry for that poor, pretty girl in Macau," Moneypenny sighed. "A victim if there ever was one. She worked for Raoul Silva, yeah? But she was also more or less the bastard's sex slave. Bond probably shouldn't have gone out of his way to sleep with the poor thing. In the end, it only contributed to Silva's decision to kill her."

"I think 007 had multiple motives, there," said Q, uneasily. Everybody knew 007 and Moneypenny were essentially _just friends_ , but still… "He needed her to get to Silva. It was hardly just for fun. And he had no idea Silva would shoot her."

"I suppose," said Moneypenny pensively, "that kind of ruthlessness, that coldness, is something all the Double O agents have, to some degree. In addition to their other qualities."

"And what other qualities do they need to have?"

"Intelligence, nerves of steel, fast reflexes, a steady hand and good eye, a sense of style, emotional maturity."

"Bond has the emotional maturity of an insect," snapped Q irritably.

"Oh come on now, love."

"Of an alley cat, then," Q said, wondering why in hell they were having this conversation. "As for style, not all of us have the time and resources to go clothes shopping in Mayfair. And is a sense of style so essential for a Double O agent?"

Moneypenny looked amused. "As if tailored suits were of any interest to you," she murmured, eyeing Q's mustard-color cardigan. "And why are you so hostile? I thought you and Bond got on fairly well. As for style, yes the Double Os have to have some, and yes, they need those clothes. They move in all sorts of social circles, while on assignment, you know."

"I suppose I ought to be grateful," mumbled Q, "that the rest of us needn't follow a strict dress code."

"Yes, you ought," Moneypenny said crisply, patting him on the cheek as she examined his clean but slightly creased collar with a friendly yet critical eye.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Bond appeared in Q Branch an hour later, in one of his beautifully tailored suits, his Walther tucked neatly into its hidden holster.

"My flight leaves tomorrow," he said without any greeting or preamble. "And I have a meeting with M twenty minutes from now. So I'd like to be quick about this, if you don't mind."

"Hardly," replied Q, handing over a new radio, an even smaller version than the last one, a sheaf of falsified medical documents—for the target/informant, not Bond—Bond's own travel papers, and a pair of stylish-looking sunglasses that automatically converted to night-vision spectacles, complete with zoom and autofocus.

"I've been told this is a matter of retrieval, not termination," he said slowly, as he extended the last of these objects. "But be careful, nevertheless."

"Don't worry, Q," Bond said, receiving the tech in one hand and brushing his Quartermaster's wrist with the other. "I'll try to return everything in one piece, if that's what's bothering you. Or perhaps you're missing me already?"

This was too much. "Are you _flirting_ with me, 007?" Q asked coldly, but he realized that Bond could feel the leaping pulse beneath his fingers, through the fine-grained skin of his thin wrist.

"Wait and see," Bond replied, calm and nonchalant as he removed his hand from Q's arm. "When I come back, I may flirt with you some more."

"Wait and…see…?"

"When I come back from Salzburg." Bond paused and raised his eyebrows ruminatively. "Correction. _If_ I come back from Salzburg."

"Oh shut up, will you," Q snarled, and then watched, glowering, as 007 made his leisurely exit from Q Branch and headed for the closest stairwell.

* * *

**Note:**

*Actually, Tolkien never indicated that the elves of _The Lord of the Rings_ had pointed or prominent ears. It was Peter Jackson's film that endowed them with these appendages!


	6. Hot, Hot Dreams and Cold Surveillance

**Chapter 6: Hot, Hot Dreams and Cold Surveillance**

November was probably not the best month in which to visit Salzburg. Snow, and the ski season, would have begun a bit further south, in the mountains, but in the city it was merely cold and damp. At least pristine snow was visible on the tops of the closest mountains, like sugar icing, and nothing could dim the picture-postcard beauty of Salzburg's baroque architecture and narrow, picturesque streets, the Salzach river, and the late-medieval majesty of the Hohensalzburg fortress, on the hill overlooking the entire town.

The late Raoul Silva's former henchman, Albert Doinel, was not due to arrive in Austria until the next day, so Bond had an evening to himself. He spent it walking the streets of the town—it had been a while since he last spent time there—dispassionately admiring the well-preserved eighteenth-century buildings, and searching for the restaurant he had discovered during a previous visit. Having located it, he treated himself to an excellent meal and a half-bottle of very good wine. Back in his hotel room he took the usual security measures, checked his mobile phone and laptop—no messages from Headquarters, nothing from Tanner, or Moneypenny, or Q—and fell asleep almost the moment his head touched the pillow.

Perhaps it was all the _schlag_ on the Viennese-style pastry, or the crisp, clear mountain air, but the sleeper found himself in the grip of a series of unsettling dreams, only the last of which he could recall with clarity.

If dreams had the power to be prophetic…he could only hope this was one of them. There was comforting warmth, and somewhere in the background music was playing. The rich taste of a superb brandy was in his mouth. Q's arms were round his neck, his thin, flexible body was beneath Bond's, and Bond's hands were stroking up and down his narrow, delicate torso, feeling the fine bone structure beneath the silky skin. Q's wild curls formed a halo of darkness on the pillow around his narrow, piquant-featured face, and the glint of his eyes, alternately hazel green and greenish grey, was visible beneath half-closed lids and black lashes. His slender thighs opened just enough to allow Bond's hips to slide between them. In this dream, Bond couldn't see Q's hands, but he could feel them, and then one of them, long-fingered and strong, gripped him with thoughtful precision, pulling the skin back from the head, and exploring the hot, hard surface with care, before curling round him again and rhythmically pulling him off. The force of Bond's climax jerked him awake, and he half sat up, chest heaving and hands clutching the sheets, hearing the faint street noises beyond the window, and feeling the slippery mess on his stomach drip slowly onto the mattress.

Thoughts of this nature were getting to be too intrusive. Clearly something would have to be done about…to be done about this wretched obsession, once he was back in London. It was either that or resort to sleeping pills. The type strong enough to suppress the dream state.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

According to M's briefing, the day before Bond flew out of London, Silva's elusive henchman Doinel—his second or third in command, as it turned out—was almost eager to turn himself in to agents of MI6. Bereft of his employer, and consequently of his paycheck, he had run low on funds and committed a singularly stupid crime, fleeing Macao for the Chinese hinterlands, and robbing a local bank. He had also shot and killed a police officer there, and as a result was still the subject of a massive manhunt. Slipping out of Asia—he still, it seemed, had contacts in the underworld—he had made his way to Europe, where he had committed several other, lesser crimes, mostly petty theft and armed robbery. Not wanting to spend time in a Chinese jail, or be detained by Austrian authorities, he had made it known, via electronic communication, that he would surrender to British or American agents, preferring prison in the UK or US to incarceration elsewhere.

Because of the death and havoc wreaked by Silva's team on MI6, American authorities felt it was only fair to offer Monsieur Doinel to the British.

Which was why James Bond found himself on the outskirts of Salzburg the following midnight, making his way, on foot and in the dark, towards a cluster of houses in one of the small towns—suburbs, really—just outside of the city. Q's night-vision glasses were perched on his nose, and Q's voice was in his ear. Bond watched his breath turn to frosty vapor in front of his eyes—it was very cold—and refused to think about the dream he had had the night before.

The night-vision glasses functioned perfectly, Bond noted, and a touch on the frame next to either lense activated the zoom-in, zoom-out capability. Clever Q! And how insightful of him to give them such a tastefully stylish design. Now where the bloody hell was Doinel? His message of surrender, conveyed by an American operative, had said he would meet whichever MI6 agent was sent to fetch him on the edge of the local playground. Bond had spent the past hour in silent surveillance, thankful for the whisper-thin thermal jacket (designed by Q Branch) that provided as much warmth as a heavy down coat but permitted ease of movement, with several hidden pockets and compartments, constructed to hold weapons and other devices of various sorts.

"There's somebody ahead of you, on the right side of the road," Q's voice said steadily in his ear. "You should be able to see him by now. He's alone. Is it Doinel?"

"It is," Bond said quietly, withdrawing his gun from its holster and moving forward. "I don't think he's going to try anything funny. He must realize he's being watched."

In spite of the darkness, Q's night-vision glasses gave Bond a good view of his target's face as he approached. Why was it that so many high-ranking criminals (like Midgard, for example) had the look of successful businessmen or wealthy playboys? It went beyond the expensive clothing and accoutrements, things that any moderately successful thief or scammer could buy. It was all in the demeanor. Albert Doinel was half Canadian, half Vietnamese, and as stunningly good-looking as a Hollywood movie star. He was roughly the same age as Bond, reputed to be well-educated, and, according to documents, had been recruited by Silva in Shanghai.

"I know I'm being watched," Doinel said, almost as if he had heard Bond's conversation with his Quartermaster. They were now nearly close enough to shake hands, although they made no attempt to do so. "You needn't fear for your safety," Doinel added, pointing at Bond's Walther. "I'm certain you're aware that I'm alone."

"Yes, we're aware of it," Bond replied shortly, deliberately using the plural. "But I don't imagine you want to converse out here."

Doinel led him into the nearest building; a bed-and-breakfast type of establishment, from the look of it, and into a private room, carpeted, curtained, with chintz-upholstered furniture.

"I remember you," the fugitive said baldly. "From Macao, and then the island. Clever, the stunts with the gun and the Komodo Dragon, and taking Patrice's place. The boss said you'd be good, although not quite as good as he could be. Now. As I said in my communiqué. I'm willing to turn myself in to MI6. I'll give you whatever information I can. All I ask is that I'm treated humanely and given a fair trial. Tired of being on the run. There's no way anybody can replace the boss, and I don't want to go to prison in Asia. Funny, isn't it?" He gestured at his own handsome face, which melded Caucasian and Asian elements with symmetry and distinction.

His pronouncements did not strike Bond as particularly convincing—what man of Doinel's stature in the criminal world turns himself in because he wants a fair trial?—but he reasoned that if the man wanted to be taken into custody, it could only be helpful to international security in the long run. M and the American authorities surely knew what they were talking about.

"As you've come out of hiding and agreed to a deal," Bond said carefully. "We'll see to it that you're…looked after. A helicopter's coming to take you out of here." The rapid thwhap-thwhap-thwhap of the rotor was already audible in the distance.

"Interesting to see you again," Doinel murmured, and then became close-mouthed. All he had with him was a laptop and some luggage bags filled with clothing, and by the time the helicopter crew arrived, he was sitting composedly in a chair facing Bond, leafing through a back issue of a travel magazine.

The crew included a medical technician, who, as agreed, administered a sedative strong enough to render the fugitive unconscious. Armed with forged medical papers—if stopped, they would claim he was an accident victim being transported to a special trauma unit—they strapped Doinel to a gurney and loaded him neatly into the copter. Bond followed them outside, where Doinel's luggage and laptop were checked out by a technician, one of Q's minions, to make certain they wouldn't explode, or do something else unfortunate, en route, and then everybody save Bond piled into the cockpit and strapped in before lifting off.

"Mission accomplished," Bond said, to the comm link and the emptiness of the icy road. He had anticipated a trap, at least some show of resentment, even violence. It was rarely that an operation of this sort went so smoothly.

"Good," Q responded, from well over six hundred miles away.

His assignment completed, Bond returned to his hotel room, adrenaline thrumming through his system, his fatigue forgotten. He wrote up his report, stored it on his laptop, and sent an encrypted copy to M before downing a quantity of the best single-malt Scotch the hotel had in stock. It was now past dawn, but he wasn't scheduled to return to London until that evening, and he slid beneath the heavy quilted coverlets on his hotel bed, hoping for two or three hours of sleep.

Engulfed in the downy featherbed, he found it easy enough to drift off…only to envision a wide, boyish mouth curving gently upward in a thin, angular face. In this dream, a completely out-of-character, wanton Q teased and taunted him with that tantalizing pink mouth, denying Bond access of any kind.

Bond groaned and released his pent-up heat, waking to find himself sweating, sticky, and woolly-headed, thanks to the dream, the whisky, and the ridiculously overstuffed featherbed.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

That went quite well," Mallory said musingly, as Bond faced him across his desk a day later. "Doinel has been extremely cooperative. Surprising, really. Our people are talking with him now. We'll turn him over to police custody once we have the information we want."

Bond was silent, remembering what had happened when Raoul Silva, scheduled to be turned over to law enforcement, had escaped before he could be taken to prison.

"I don't know, sir," he said slowly, wondering if he was being too suspicious. "I don't like it. But I don't see that there's much else we can do with him."

"Excuse me, sir," Tanner said from the door. His usually impassive face wore an expression of astonishment and distaste. "He's asking that dinner be brought to him from Claridge's. Says he's been living rough lately, and needs a decent meal."

"The bloody hell he does," exploded Mallory, frowning. "Who does he think he is? He'll eat what we eat,"—Moneypenny huffed with derision in the anteroom—"and be glad for it. Send somebody to fetch him a sandwich, or a beefburger or something. I had better ring the Americans at Homeland Security; they've been asking for a report. Bond, you can go, but be back in three hours' time. Ask Miss Moneypenny to bring me some tea and an aspirin on your way out, will you?"

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Report to the psychologist's office after target practice, 007," said Moneypenny, returning to her desk with something resembling a smirk. "And don't be late."

"You're joking. What have I done this time?"

"Psych evaluation, James. You know."

"What, _again_?"

"M says we're all to do it three times a year, now. _All_ of us. No exceptions." She sighed histrionically. "And don't forget, you're meeting with M again at four."

Bond's lips turned downward in a grimace of displeasure as he headed in the direction of the firing range. Scoring a ninety—his best session in over a year—did little to mitigate the annoyance he felt as he obediently reported to the office of MI6's resident psychologist.

"007," the grey-suited, grey-haired doctor said in greeting as Bond dropped into the chair facing him.

"Doctor," Bond replied courteously, but with an effort, as he restrained himself from drumming his fingers on the top of the table that separated them.

"Well, you know how this works, 007, you know the drill," the doctor said jovially, gazing at the notes he had pulled from Bond's dossier. "We'll start with the word associations. A few of the words will be the same as usual; let's see how you respond. [Bond scowled.] Are we ready, then? Here's the first. Light?"

"Darkness."

"Heart?"

"Target."

"Hate?"

"Love."

"Love?"

"Problem."

"Finger?"

"Trigger."

"Mouth?"

"Sex."

The doctor blinked.

"Hand?"

"Weapon."

"Hair?"

"Q," said Bond, without thinking, and saw the psychologist's eyebrows wobble. It occurred to him, then, that he really had developed something of a fetish about Q's hair. Those stubbornly undisciplined locks evoked thoughts of prolonged and strenuous sexual marathons; Q's hair was the perfect thing to wrap your fingers in and hold on to, tightly, for the duration. An unconstructed mass of waves and free-form tendrils, it usually looked as though its owner had just that moment rolled out of bed.

The one time, in Kyoto, that he had put his hand into the silky mess (which at moments seemed to have a life of its own), it had felt as though electricity was sparking through his fingers. Which it very well could have been; Q's was the sort of hair that probably sent out sparks when he combed it…if he bothered to comb it at all.

When the doctor began a series of questions on the subject of dreams, Bond became stubbornly mute, or at the most offered monosyllabic replies that meant very little.

How often did 007 have bad dreams? Good ones? How frequently did he remember what they were? Did he have any particular fantasies, and if so, what was the subject of them, or the _object_ of his cravings?

No bloody fucking way.

That was clearly none of the man's bloody business, in Bond's opinion.

And if the _object_ was brilliant, rail-thin, and had dark hair, changeable green eyes, a slightly retroussé nose, and mobile, astonishingly deep pink lips, Bond was not prepared to reveal this to any other member of MI6, doctor or no.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Sorry, James," Moneypenny said as Bond appeared in the anteroom to M's office. "He's with some American official from their Department of Homeland Security. It may be a bit of a wait."

"Not a problem," Bond said agreeably. "I'll go and find a cup of tea; can I bring you some?"

"No, thank you. I've just inhaled a double espresso. Q's on the roof, by the way," she added, looking at Bond from the corner of her eye. "In case you need to see him about anything."

"Really," murmured Bond in a noncommittal voice. "There is something I could ask him about, now that I think on it. Thanks, Moneypenny; I'll be back…" He glanced at the clock on Moneypenny's desk. "In fifteen minutes."

He found Q standing near the edge of the roof, where he and Moneypenny had once gazed out over the domes and spires of the London skyline, only days after the previous M was laid to rest. The sunlight, fitful but bright that afternoon, turned the Quartermaster's hair from black to a deep mahogany color, and put a faint hint of color into his hollow cheeks. He turned his head as Bond strolled up to him, but did not speak.

"Moneypenny told me I might find you here," Bond said unnecessarily. "I wonder if you could have a look at my Walther; it's nothing too serious, but I would like it seen to before I'm sent out again."

"I'm glad the Austrian mission went so well," Q said, almost absently. "That surprised me. Now…what was it? Your gun? One of my staff worked on it a week ago. It's a precision instrument, 007; I don't know why it is you handle your weapons so much more carelessly than the other field agents."

"Sorry."

"What's amiss with it now?"

"The trigger's a bit stiff," Bond replied, and then, belatedly, realized exactly what that sounded like.

"I see," drawled Q in a skeptical voice. "Very well. Leave it with me. If you're still in the building within the next two hours, I'll have one of my people deliver it to you."

He returned his gaze to the London rooftops, and Bond took the opportunity to study his profile, not classically chiseled but gently drawn, with a long neck that any fashion model might envy.

"Q, will you have dinner with me?"

Q wrinkled his brow and then stared at Bond as one might look at a guard dog poised to gnaw at one's ankle.

"Is there something that you need to discuss?"

"No. I would simply like to have dinner with you."

"Oh," said Q with a touch of impishness. "You need me to protect you from a local version of the Italian diplomat's wife."

"No, Q."

Q swallowed visibly. "Er. In that case, I…I…Why on earth do you want to have dinner with me, 007?"

"I fancy you know the answer to that one."

Bond leaned into Q's personal space, not quite close enough to touch, but near enough to bring a rosy flush to the Quartermaster's cheeks and brow.

Q swallowed again, and Bond forced his mind away from the frighteningly _real_ dreams he had had in Salzburg...not to mention the one or two he had had since. Instinct told him that Q was _not_ indifferent to him, that Bond's attentions flustered him in a way that could only—hopefully—mean one thing. Q was young; surely he needed sex? Surely he didn't attribute Bond's actions solely to the intense adrenaline rush everybody associated with the Double O agents after a successful mission.

Of course the Quartermaster, with his sharp intelligence, his sensitivity, and his pride, was not the sort who would allow himself to become a Double O agent's plaything, a toy to be enjoyed and then discarded at will. Was that what was preventing him from responding to Bond's rather obvious effort to progress beyond a simple workplace flirtation?

"007," Moneypenny called from the door to the stairwell. "M will see you now; he's waiting with Tanner."

Bond promptly turned and headed for the stairs, and Moneypenny gave him a mildly apologetic look as he slipped past her.

"Better luck next time," she whispered with genuine affection, and he raised his eyebrows, ruefully, before descending to where duty awaited him.

* * *

**As the character of Bond has undergone so many permutations, from the novels to the films, and an assortment of actors beginning with Connery (or was there somebody before him?) and ending with Craig, it's difficult to imagine how he would handle a serious attempt to seduce his Quartermaster! Of course fanfiction allows for unlimited poetic license, but still…feedback is definitely most welcome!**


	7. A Giraffe With Glasses

**Chapter 7: A Giraffe with Glasses**

There was no question about it. James Bond, Double Oh Bloody Fucking Seven, was a sensuous and attractive man, and he, Q, was attracted to him.

Q had berated himself for an entire day after their conversation on the roof. _James Bond is a cold bastard who sleeps with whom he wants when he wants. And he can get almost anyone he wants. And I don't want him, er, not really. That is, I only want him because I'm so bloody sex-starved. If I had known this job was going to eat up nearly every spare moment of my life, I would have…I wouldn't have…_

Eventually he stopped, because he was too level-headed and too intelligent to blame his job for the lack of a fulfilling personal life, or even a sex life. True, being Quartermaster meant that he often arrived at Q Branch before anybody else, and just as often left after everybody but the small group of minions who came in, most evenings, to man the night shift. However, he had known what he was getting into, more or less from the start. True, he had very little free time—much of which was devoted to sleep—but if he had been really desperate, he could have spent some of that limited time in the places where pickups of either gender were easy to come by, and he, as fresh young meat, would have had no lack of interested, would-be partners.

At this point, he was honest enough with himself to (finally) accept the fact that yes, he _was_ physically drawn, and very strongly, to 007. And that he wasn't going to do anything about it.

Why Bond continued to flirt with him was beyond his comprehension, Q thought groggily several nights later as he lay in bed, dewed with sweat and limp as a dishcloth after putting his hand to good use. Recalling the good-natured camaraderie and playfulness of his sexual encounters at university, Q, who had been active but not promiscuous, thought to himself that fucking Bond (or being fucked by him) would be nothing like those light-hearted shags in the residence halls of academe. Q remembered their one kiss, playacting in Kyoto, and the sardonic tilt of Bond's lips afterward, the way he ran his hand absently through his pale cropped hair. Sex with Bond would be hot and darkly intense, exciting, terrifying, it would be…

Q resolutely stopped thinking about it and went to take a cold shower.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"That fellow Doinel," said Tanner musingly, setting his mug of tea on one of Q's workstations. "He's been talking since he got here, but mostly about Silva, and little about his own…shall we say, electronic misdeeds."

It had become habit for M to send his Chief of Staff down to Q Branch twice per month, to see how various projects were progressing. After being briefed by Q, and if time permitted, Tanner sometimes stayed long enough for a cup (a mug, really) of Q's Earl Grey and a chat with the Quartermaster. If they had more than five minutes, they exchanged a little departmental gossip, or, as usual, traded lines from Shakespeare to the bewilderment of Q's minions.

"As long as we get what we need from him," said Q, shrugging. "One less cyber predator running loose; that's how I see it."

"Bond's been suspicious of him all along," Tanner mumbled. "Ever since Austria. And after all his years in the field, he has a kind of sixth sense about these things."

Q frowned and chewed on his lower lip, until he noticed that Tanner was eyeing him surreptitiously.

"Well, Bond may be right," he responded, finally, hoping that nothing showed in his expression when he said the name. "No doubt Doinel's upping the stakes. Wants more in exchange for his information. My thinking is that he wasn't able to stay in one place long enough, after Silva died, to implement anything really sinister. He doesn't have Silva's hacking abilities, to start with. From what I've been told, he only did a little programing; he was more important as the fixer, the one who recruited various types of, uh, villains to work for the boss."

Tanner shrugged in turn, and picked up the stack of grey folders Q had prepared for M's perusal.

"No Shakespeare today," he said rather regretfully, finishing the last of his tea.

"Next time, _I'll_ be Bolingbroke and _you_ can be Richard," Q said reassuringly after draining the lukewarm contents of his own mug. "If I can remember the lines."

"What on earth are they talking about?" Patil hissed in the background. "Some kind of role playing?"

"Sounds incredibly kinky," muttered Albery. "Wait til 007 hears."

"Pay no attention to them," said Q, as Tanner raised his eyebrows at Albery's pronouncement. "They have active imaginations but no manners to speak of, unless they're asking for time off. Tell Eve I said hi."

After Tanner's departure, Q returned to his latest version of the distress signal radio he was preparing for 008. The agent was departing for South America in two days, and Q was thinking of assigning Michaels or Manuelli to communicate with him during his mission. 008's comments to Q, over the comm link, had become a bit too suggestive of late.

Thank God the majority of the Double Os were aggressively heterosexual, Q thought grimly as he peered down at the tiny device. 008's open infatuation was bad enough, but he still had to contend with 007's halfway ambiguous and very distracting assaults upon his psyche.

"Interesting, isn't it, how all the higher-ups find their way down to Q Branch on a regular basis," Manuelli was saying to the rest of his staff. "He's very popular, is our Quartermaster."

"Tanner's married," Michaels snorted. "They're just friends."

"I thought the boss was dating Miss Moneypenny," said Patil, cluelessly, and Manuelli huffed with exasperation.

"And _who_ is it that stops in at Q Branch every other day, like clockwork?" she said archly. "Our boss had better ingest some carbohydrates—a lot of them—if he's thinking of taking on 007. Come to think of it, he needs carbohydrates, period."

"We could send out for a massive rare beefsteak," Michaels said. "Get some blood into his veins. Sir! Would you fancy a steak and some chips for lunch?"

"He hasn't any blood in his veins," Manuelli grumbled, lips pursed. "Only Earl Grey."

"I'm serious," insisted Michaels, pounding on his keyboard so emphatically that he erased several lines of code. "We don't want him to collapse on the job. We've got to look after him, for the sake of national security."

"And for 007," somebody—it sounded like Albery—muttered, and there were several hastily stifled giggles.

Q sighed and turned to face the room. "You should all be grateful," he said, "that I'm a kind person with the patience of Job. Now let's get on with those new escape route protocols, shall we? Wouldn't want 008 stuck in the middle of a South American rainforest with no way to signal an extraction team."

"007 wouldn't mind that very much," Albery whispered, evidently forgetting how well sound carried in their cavernous workspace.

"What 007 minds or doesn't mind," Q said sternly. "Is none of our business. Michaels! Aren't you meant to be supervising the new recruits? I have it on good authority that they've been raising hell in the explosives lab."

"Sorry, sir," Michaels responded meekly, and went off to raise hell at the unsuspecting recruits.

Q sighed again, and returned to his specs for 008's new radio.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Three weeks after James Bond's return from Austria, and the successful retrieval of Albert Doinel, Q stood in M's anteroom, talking with Moneypenny.

"We've got two of the Double Os on separate missions next week," said Moneypenny, tapping the stack of papers on her desk. "You'll equip them on Monday; nothing remarkable needed for either."

"Oh? What sort of cover will they be adopting?"

"008's to be _disguised_ as a financial analyst, of all things, and 007's going to be a killer for hire."

"Not much of a disguise, is it?" Q said dryly, and Moneypenny gave him a sharp but friendly look.

"I spent a year in America, as a child," she said musingly. "I remember how wild the children there are for Halloween. You know, the costumes and the trick-or-treating from door to door with their friends. I sometimes think our field agents enjoy playing dress-up, although I don't know that I'd care to find them trick-or-treating at my door."

Q chuckled because this made him remember Halloween, more than a month or so ago, and how somebody (Moneypenny?) had hung a fake bat from M's desk lamp. 002 had sported a fake skeleton tattoo, and several of the desk personnel had actually worn costumes to work. (Mallory had not approved.) As Head of Q Branch, Q had done nothing of the sort, but Bond had stopped him in the hallway, one hand placed lightly on his forearm, and said in his most ironic manner, "Let me guess…Harry Potter?"

Q had mentally counted to ten and refrained from glaring like a stroppy schoolboy. A moment later, however, when Bond was out of hearing, he had actually laughed.

He remembered his childhood, and how, at school, other boys had made fun of him for—shades of Harry Potter—his messy, rebellious hair, his shyness, his thinness, his glasses. Because of his long neck, they had dubbed him "the Giraffe with Glasses," but perhaps because of his frail, waiflike appearance, and his ability to redo their maths homework for them, he had never been beaten or taunted to excess.

He had taken satisfaction in the changes wrought by academic brilliance and the respect of his teachers, not to mention the hormones that flooded his body after puberty set in. By the time he entered university at fifteen, he was still spidery-thin, but his delicacy was nicely proportioned, and he had become good looking, if still waiflike; his high-cheekboned face had settled into an odd sort of prettiness (some said, an odd sort of beauty). He had learned how to hide the shyness, intellectual confidence had given him a touch of poise, and both women and men found him attractive. As many of his former schoolmates descended into mundane lives of humdrum employment, drinking too much, fucking other people indiscriminately, and losing sight of their childhood dreams, he worked his way up the ladder of scholastic and technical achievement. Post-uni, after a few years of working with a former professor on internet security protocols for both cultural organizations and government agencies, as well as how to spot potential terrorist activity online, someone must have alerted MI6 to his remarkable potential. Recruited by M to do freelance work for Q Branch, he had been elevated to Head of the department immediately following the gas explosion engineered by Raoul Silva.

Now Q had status, even if his identity had to remain hidden from most people. He had learned how to be crisply authoritative, had confidence in his capabilities and a polished public demeanor. He had respect, he had human and electronic resources at his command, and a remarkable degree of power that he knew he would never misuse. He could never misuse it because inside, sometimes, he was still that shy loner of a boy whose compassion for other oddballs and loners ensured that he would never be a bully, or take advantage of the weakness of others.

And Bond…he had a façade as well, didn't he? People who knew him on a purely casual, superficial level knew Bond the stone cold killer, the charmer with ice blue eyes who could shag an enemy agent one moment, shoot her the next; the man with the Double O license to kill, who left a virtual carpet of dead bodies and live, panting paramours in his wake.

But there were several at MI6, Q among them, who had seen a different side to the field operative who slept, if the rumors were true, with his Walther under his pillow. They had shared Chinese takeaway with him in his disordered flat, gotten drunk with him, even talked with him, on rare occasions, about something other than duty and espionage. They had seen the look on his face after the former M died in his arms. Himself, Moneypenny, and Tanner. Perhaps one or two of the Double Os with whom Bond was on cordial terms.

Well…didn't everybody have a public face and a private one?

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Laboratory Two was a small, glassed-in chamber off the computer lab, where Q Branch's newest inventions and gagetry, much of it made from modified everyday objects, were laid out on a long worktable for examination. The only other furniture was a desk with a computer terminal, and a chair, to which Q occasionally retreated when he needed respite from the chatter of his subordinates in the computer lab.

There, he was temporarily safe from his minions, but not from 007, who had interrupted his solitude twice in the past two weeks, once with a bulletproof jacket that needed repairs, the second time with digital file documents requiring expert forgery. To do him justice, this was work that needed doing, but it also would have been easy for him to send the material down to Q Branch via a messenger.

When Bond made his third appearance in Laboratory Two, first thing on Friday morning, Q looked up with mild exasperation.

"What is it this time, 007? Has your radio lost its activation 'antenna' again?"

"The radio's fine," Bond replied, surveying the gadgetry laid out on the worktable. There were three mobile phones—at least, that's what they looked like—a book of matches, one pen ("It doesn't explode," Q murmured wryly), an Oyster card for the Tube, a run-of-the-mill looking guidebook to London, and what looked like perfectly ordinary wooden toothpicks.

"Just keep your hands off the mods, 007," Q said abruptly, gesturing him away from the table. "These are prototypes. When we start making copies, you can destroy your own, if you've a mind to. Which you usually do."

"I won't touch them. I've brought my Walther; the grip is loose again. It makes the gun wobble." Bond's eyes were still sweeping the objects on the table. "I take it none of these are for me?"

Q shook his head vehemently, and his wayward fringe fell forward over his glasses.

"You need a haircut, Q."

Really, Q had been meaning to get one, but never seemed to have the time.

"No more than you need a shave, 007."

"Do I, seriously? Nobody else has complained."

Bond spoke lightly, in his most flirtatious tone (the one he used to so many of the MI6 female staff, but had been directing at the Quartermaster with a little extra vigor), and Q responded automatically, before he could think. He cocked his head to the side, sliding his eyes toward Bond beneath half-lowered lashes, and gave the tiniest hint of a smile.

"Tease," Bond said quietly, and Q was about to say something indignant, but then didn't, because he realized that yes, that glance could have been read by anyone as a come-hither type of look.

"Why do you flirt with me, 007?" Q blurted out, not caring, at this point, whether it was wise to speak out on the subject or not.

"You know why, Quartermaster."

Q mimed ignorance, with raised eyebrows.

"Q." Bond leaned casually against the desk, ice blue eyes alight, and when he was like that it was easy to forget, if only briefly, how deadly he was, how dangerous.

"007, you're not making sense."

"I want you," Bond said in a conversational voice. "And damn you, you bloody well know it."

In spite of the words he had just uttered, Bond didn't look angry, but all of a sudden Q was. What fucking right did 007 have to chip away at his peace of mind, his equilibrium, like this? _Everybody_ knew about Bond, the suave, irresistible, heartless bastard. The man with, in all likelihood, hundreds of notches carved into his bedpost. Who probably reduced his conquests to a state of quivering jelly before fucking them and then leaving without a shred of conscience. Q took a deep breath and met Bond's eyes with unflinching calm, hiding the turmoil going on in his mind. Because he was of the opinion that if he showed any weakness or hesitancy, Bond would use that weakness to take him home (to Q's home, not Bond's) and have sex with him. And that would be that. Another notch on the bloody bedpost.

"007," said Q, cool as a cucumber. "Don't think I'm not flattered. After all, I'm hardly your type. But I believe you're here to see about your weapon and its loose, er, handgrip?" Oh God, why did everything he'd just said sound like double-entendre?

Bond held out the Walther without a word, his eyes still on Q's. Q pointed to the top of the desk, but instead, Bond put the gun into Q's hand, fingers warm against his skin. He withdrew his own hand after a moment, and stood waiting, while Q silently cursed the leap of his own heart rate, because if Bond's gesture hadn't been a symbolic one, then he, Q, was Sigmund Freud.

"Give me a day with this," said Q, maintaining his unruffled demeanor with an effort. "I know you're anxious to have it back, but compliments and blandishments aren't going to make the repairs go any faster."

"You think that's what I'm doing?" Bond murmured, but he was smiling, and for all of Q's rejection, he didn't seem to have taken any offense. His smile was genuine, and just a little quizzical, and for a split second Q felt his own lips curving upward in a genuine response.

"I don't know what it is you're doing, 007, but if you don't mind…I have a report to type up, and so…" Q made haphazard motions in the direction of the door. "I'll have one of my people deliver this to you as soon as it's ready." He tilted his head towards the door again, and to his surprise, Bond nodded at him in a cordial fashion and went.

As soon as the glass door closed behind him, Q realized that he had been holding his breath, and let it out in a whoosh that stirred the papers on his desk. On the other side of the transparent wall between Laboratory Two and the computer lab, his minions were coding away, their mouths moving more quickly than their fingers as they—no doubt—gossiped about 007's latest visit.

Perhaps, if the problem wasn't too grave, he could send Bond's gun back to him by the end of the day.

Q peered at the handgrip of the Walther through his magnifying glass, squinted at it for a moment, and laughed aloud.

* * *

**Notes:**

**Smut is coming soon.**

**Perhaps you can guess why Q laughed.**

**In the previous chapter, I realize that I got a bit carried away with Q's "undisciplined" hair. Actually, in "Skyfall," in the underground bunker scenes, Q's hair looks relatively disciplined, as if it had been heavily sprayed (which it probably was) to hold all those waves and wisps in place, like a little helmet. I suppose I've been influenced by the many photos of Mr Whishaw with his hair curling and waving and sticking out all over the place.**

**Congratulations to Ben, though, on his BAFTA for** _**Richard II** _ **. That had to have been the most adorably awkward acceptance speech ever.**


	8. Bright Star

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Voici le smut.

**Chapter 8: Bright Star**

_007: busy here but am completing repairs, will have somebody return weapon to you asap. Q_

Bond studied the message on his mobile phone, brow creased, and decided that there was no hidden message involved. At least, there was no anger evident in the brief text. Bond had wondered, since leaving Q Branch that morning, whether he should have stayed silent, rather than verbalize his state of mind as he had done.

He remembered encountering Q in the hall one day, moments after 008 had hit on him. Q had said nothing but he was white with temper, and Bond hadn't much blamed him; 008 had all the tact of a sledgehammer. It was no wonder that M had never sent him out on missions that required finesse, or any sort of delicate seduction. All the same, he didn't think he had ever seen the Quartermaster so angry.

Q's reaction to Bond's straightforward statement of desire had been ambiguous, but at least it hadn't been hostile.

"Are you just leaving, 007?" Moneypenny inquired, startling him out of his perusal of the message. "I'll walk out with you."

"I'll see you to your car," Bond replied, holding the door open as she trotted past him, struggling with her coat but looking pleased as a cat on the loose in the dairy. "Why the Cheshire cat smile? Significant date awaiting your arrival?"

"Oh do be quiet, James," she said briskly, rolling her eyes. "Nothing of the sort. I'm meeting old school chums for dinner. And you? What seduction and mayhem do you have planned for the weekend?"

"No mayhem," Bond murmured. "Unless you can apply the word to the remainder of the packing crates in my flat."

"Seduction, then?"

It was Bond's turn to raise his eyes skyward. "My God. Why is it that everybody thinks I'm only interested in one thing, beyond my job."

"Because you are," Moneypenny said cheerfully. "Oh, have you heard the latest about the Doinel case? He claims he's told us everything he knows, and M's preparing to have him remanded to law enforcement, tomorrow. It'll be good to know he's imprisoned for life. Some of our female staff have been gawking at him from a distance. A pity criminals like him have to be so bloody handsome."

"Yes, isn't it," replied Bond dryly. "Why didn't you leave your car in the garage? All things considered, it may not be wise to leave it at the curb."

"Easier to get away, and quicker," Moneypenny said, peering through the dusk. "Oh, look," she added brightly. "It's Q." And she watched, with a knowing smile, as Bond's head snapped round involuntarily.

Q was walking along the pavement on the other side of the road, completely oblivious to their presence. At work, in the various workrooms and computer lab of MI6, he usually looked at least somewhat professional, with his v-necked cardigans neatly buttoned up over his shirt and tie. At the moment, bundled into a dark-colored duffel coat with his head uncovered, thin legs encased in narrow-cut jeans (which he must have changed into, before leaving MI6), he could have passed for any young man—a student, perhaps—on his way to meet friends at a fish and chips shop, or a local pub. His chin was lowered and eyes downcast, as though he was searching for something on the ground, and the breeze was stirring wisps and elflocks of that instantly recognizable hair, making it look much less manageable than it did under the fluorescent lights of Q Branch.

"Good lord, just look at that hair," Moneypenny murmured with a touch of envy. "What on earth must it be like, first thing in the morning?"

"It's genius hair," replied Bond, who had wrestled with that very question more than once. "Anybody with hair like that must be a genius. Or a mad scientist."

"Don't be silly, James," retorted Moneypenny, fumbling in her purse for her car keys. "Q's hair is nothing like the stereotypical mad scientist's. It's prettier, for a start. But talk about having wanton locks!"

Wantonness wasn't something anybody at HQ could possibly associate with the Quartermaster, and only Bond, who had seen him stripped practically naked, could conjure up an image of a very wanton Q, pale and silent, with lashes lowered over green eyes, spread across the sheets of the new bed in his new flat. And later, panting in his arms with those fragile-looking limbs wrapped round him.

Bond acknowledged, with a sense of resignation bordering on frustration, that he was really very far gone. A highly unusual condition for a man whose specialties were assassination, resurrection, and no-strings-attached sex.

"How much farther to your car?" he asked in an attempt to change the subject.

"He's actually the most adorable creature," Moneypenny continued, her eyes on Bond's impassive face. "You wouldn't know, to look at him, that he's one of the bright stars of cyberspace and the IT world. 008's beside himself with unrequited lust," she added, and watched Bond's eyelids flicker.

"008," said Bond flatly, "would shag a lamppost if there was nothing else within reach."

"A _lamppost_?" Moneypenny murmured skeptically. "Physically impossible. Ah, here we are. Shall I give you a lift, James?"

"Thank you, but perhaps I had better walk," Bond said, his mood temporarily lightened by the mental image of 008 with a lamppost. "I could use, um, the exercise."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

It was later in the evening that Bond, nursing a Scotch in front of a television news program he was barely watching, heard a knock on the door to his flat. Seconds later, the doorbell rang.

This was peculiar, because there had been no indication that a person was in the vicinity of his residence. Security protocols, set up by MI6 after Skyfall, ensured that nobody could approach the entrance to his flat without his knowledge. The system was modest—motion detectors and a camera—but it worked well enough that Bond should have been alerted to the presence of whoever was outside his door before he or she was able to knock. He frowned and reached for his spare weapon: an older Walther PPK with no electronic modifications to the grip.

A cursory glance through the door's peephole had Bond pulling it open to reveal the MI6 Quartermaster, messenger bag on one shoulder, duffel coat slung over the other.

This was highly unprecedented, to say the least, but Bond stepped back to allow him to enter and Q strode past him, saying simply, "I'm delivering your Walther. Repairs, as you might have guessed, were minimal."

"How did you get in here without tripping the—?" Bond began, and then bit his lip with chagrin at his own stupidity, because of course Q knew all about the alarms.

"Oh, I temporarily deactivated your system," Q said coolly. "It'll reset itself in five minutes. Here." He reached into his messenger bag and withdrew a rectangular black box. Snapping this open, he revealed Bond's gun nestled within, its dark matte surface gleaming dully against the foam-core lining.

Bond took it from him, and hefted the weapon, raising his arm and lowering it after sighting along the barrel. He then studied the young man, casually clad in jeans and a loose-fitting, open-necked white shirt, whose glance seemed to be riveted to the floor.

"Thank you."

"I know you wanted it back as soon as possible."

"Yes. But I wasn't expecting the bright star of cyberspace, as Eve put it, to deliver it in person."

"A word of advice, 007," Q said quietly, not meeting Bond's eyes. "The next time you want to loosen the handgrip, don't use a metal screwdriver. It leaves marks that are easily detectable with any decent magnifying lense."

There was a pause, and Bond saw Q raise his chin to steal a quick look at his face, before returning his glance to the newly polished floorboards.

"Ah," Bond replied, finally, releasing his breath in a self-deprecating sigh. "Well, it was a good try." He set the Walther carefully on the desk, and turned back to his Quartermaster. "Care for a drink?"

"No drink, thanks," Q breathed. He had not moved, but now he did raise his eyes, and Bond also stood still, simply looking at him, noting that he was paler than usual, and that his crimson lower lip was moist, as if he had just been gnawing at it. It was becoming clear, now, why he had come, but for almost the first time in his life, Bond was uncertain as to how to proceed.

He was accustomed to being the initiator, the aggressor in intimate situations, to making the first move, sometimes overcoming a mark's initial reluctance or hesitation with his charm and his time-tested sexual know-how. He had imagined an initial physical encounter with Q as one in which he, Bond, would have to get past his Quartermaster's stubbornness, his resistance to any contact with 007 beyond a professional one. He had fantasized about having to coax his way into Q's flat, into Q's bed. Yet here Q was, in _Bond's_ flat, a rather surprising turn of events. In a strange way, it was as though Q had stolen a march on him.

Q gazed back at him steadily, and his look (which oddly enough expressed both submission and defiance) said simply: _We've played a long, hard-fought game, you and I, and you've won...sort of. I've come to an end. If you want me, I suppose I'm keen to experiment. But…don't think you're going to have things all your own way._

"Tell me why you're here, Q." The answer was obvious, but Bond wanted to hear Q say it.

"To paraphrase a certain Double O agent: you know why."

The heavy silence that followed this statement pressed in on both of them, and, after what seemed like an age, Bond took a deep breath. "Alright, then," he said quietly, and, reaching out, took Q by the wrist. The Quartermaster offered no resistance as Bond led him down the hallway to his bedroom, where a single lamp by the bed cast only a muted light.

Bond stopped just inside the door, but Q, having disengaged his wrist, moved a little farther, until he was one or two steps from the bed. Then he turned to face his host, unfastened the two uppermost buttons of his loose-fitting white shirt, and with a single fluid motion, pulled it over his head. And stood still, with a very faint smile in which Bond thought he could read just a hint of a challenge. It was a pleasure to look at him, though, with his dark curls totally disarranged, his delicately modeled chest as smooth as a young boy's, low-cut jeans clinging to his slim hips.

Q didn't move as Bond came up to him and cupped his narrow face in both hands, running a thumb lightly over his lips. He remained still when strong, capable fingers pushed his hair back from his brow as Bond leaned forward; they bumped noses before he brought their mouths together, kissing Q carefully and not too deeply. He wanted to kiss all traces of defiance from those jade-colored eyes, those secretive lips. As Bond stepped closer, running one hand lightly down Q's throat to his shoulder, he felt a little shiver run through that slight body, and a moment later Q's hand clutched convulsively at the front of his shirt.

It was then that Bond realized there were certain things he didn't have on hand that he could conceivably need. He hadn't expected Q to appear on his doorstep, and had not had the foresight to stop in at a chemist's to purchase them.

"Q, I don't have…I haven't got—" He paused for a moment. "It's been a long time since I…that is, with a man…"

Q's expression registered mild surprise—not at Bond, but at himself, as he said in a low voice, "Oh. I'd quite forgotten…It's been a _really_ long time for me, and…"

They looked at one another ruefully, both with small, ironic, bitten-in smiles, and then Bond cleared his throat and said, "It doesn't matter. We'll make do," as he unbuttoned his own shirt.

Before removing his trousers, he unfastened the button of Q's jeans and dealt with the zip, pulling the worn blue denim down to his knees. Q stepped out of them and watched, still silent, as Bond stripped off the rest of his own clothing with a rapid economy of movement. They both paused to give each other the visual once-over, the sweeping look of appraisal characteristic of every "first time", and Bond caught a glimpse of appreciation in Q's eyes as they scanned his toned, sleekly muscled physique, his evident arousal. He let Q have half a minute of this before he turned and drew back the bedclothes, folding them out of the way. The gesture suddenly seemed so formal that his lips twisted again, wryly, before he turned to Q and drew him into his arms, brushing his lips lightly down his long neck before slowly sucking a red mark just below the base of his throat.

The moment he drew his lips away from the pale, satiny skin, Q stepped back a little and began to run his eyes and hands over Bond's torso, arms, shoulders, and throat, face serious and intent. Bond panted a little as the tips of Q's fingers danced and shivered across the scars beneath his right collarbone. His touch was light, but it burned into Bond's conscious mind; it erased, no, it exorcised, the memory of Raoul Silva's fingers touching him in exactly the same place. A kind of healing touch, but there was no need to dwell on that just now, or to say anything about it to the young man who was caressing him. So he kissed Q instead, open-mouthed and with an obvious hunger, and growled with satisfaction when Q kissed him back.

They were both swaying a little, dizzy with physical need and possibly lack of oxygen. Bond took one step towards the bed; Q stumbled after him, still caught in Bond's grasp, and they toppled over onto the mattress, graceless and almost frantic in their desire to have skin pressed against skin. Once they were there, however, Bond eased his grip on that fragile waist and rolled onto his side so that he could examine Q properly. Q stared back at him as his eyes slid down Q's body, a slow, hot look. He was more than ready, but the portion of his brain that was not yet consumed with triumphant lust was telling him to slow down and proceed gradually, to take his time with the young man. Q might be brilliant, clever, and confident, he might even be quite experienced, but intuition told him that Q was also nervous, even uncertain, and trying to hide it. Not uncertain about sex—he was clearly as aroused as Bond—but about the repercussions of having _sex with 007_. (Bond was fully aware of his own reputation, of the legends that claimed his conquests were legion, and that he went from one bed partner to the next with heartless aplomb and without looking back.) _Go slowly,_ Bond told himself, _don't rush it, give him pleasure before you take your own._ He heard Q's little catch of breath and saw his lower lip quiver as his fingers teased the small, silky nubs of Q's nipples, trailed down his flat stomach, explored his sharp, prominent hipbones, and then traced the fine, almost imperceptible line of dark hair that ran from his navel to his groin.

"What a lovely thing you are," he murmured gruffly, and watched Q's face go pink. He took one of the Quartermaster's hands in his for a moment, studying the long fingers, the elegant turn of his wrist. "I don't know that I've ever seen such tiny bones."

Q's eyes narrowed dangerously. "My tiny bones serve their purpose," he said, his diction still succinct in spite of his panting breath as Bond released his hand and returned to his slow, precise caresses. "We can't all be great brutes like you."

"True. Ah, now…this bit's not so tiny."

"Bond," gasped Q, his hips arching involuntarily.

"Quite a good size, in fact."

" _Bond_ ," Q said again, this time with more of a moan than a gasp.

"Call me James."

Q went stubbornly silent, his lips pressed tightly together, but his eyelashes fluttered as Bond stroked him. After a moment, he lifted his chin, wordlessly asking to be kissed. Bond kissed him, hard, and as their teeth and tongues collided messily, they rolled close together, hip to hip, and Bond slid his hands beneath Q to grasp his buttocks, firm and boyishly contoured. Q made a little sound that was halfway between a gasp and a snarl, and his nails dug into Bond's back, leaving, in all likelihood, crescent marks.

"How fierce you are, Q," Bond whispered, relocating one hand between their bodies and taking them both in a secure grip.

Q moaned, "Shut up, shut up," into Bond's shoulder, and then bucked and twisted beneath him, hips rising, as Bond tightened fingers and palm around their cocks and slid his fist up and then slowly down again. Clenching his teeth so as not to come too soon, he stroked and pumped their joined erections again and again, varying the pressure but increasing the speed, until he felt Q's hips jerk upward spasmodically as his head fell back and he whimpered aloud. The warm wetness of his seed spilled over Bond's hand seconds before he found his own mind-shattering release.

"Oh," said Q, breathlessly, several minutes later, face pressed against the skin below Bond's jaw. Bond waited, hands gentling him as if he were a high-strung, pedigreed pup, but no additional statements were forthcoming, and for a while longer they lay quietly, feeling their rapid, pounding heartbeats ease back into their usual rhythm.

"You…that was…how…what if…did you think?" Q said finally, very serious and totally incoherent. Bond bit one of his knuckles so as not to laugh, and then ran the fingers of his other hand from the center of his Quartermaster's breastbone to the base of his stomach.

"I'm ticklish, Bond," Q protested, wriggling. Bond withdrew his questing hand and then slid out of bed, returning moments later with a warm, damp flannel that he used to wipe them both somewhat clean of stickiness. They then eased back into each other's arms, a little drowsy but not yet ready to sleep.

Not too long after this, following a vague, disjointed, and not particularly rational debate about seduction and sex in espionage, Q bit Bond on one of his prominent ears, and Bond responded by pulling him into a rough embrace. The second bout was quite as good as the first; less urgent, but no less intense. This time Q took the initiative and rolled on top, his thin body light and flexible as he maneuvered until he was between the other man's knees, eventually working his way down Bond's body to take him in his mouth.

Bond fisted his hands in Q's hair—God, how long he had wanted to do just that—and kept them there while those unbelievable, soft lips and a clever tongue surrounded his cock with wet heat and pressure. He groaned aloud as Q worked him over, humming around his hardness, sometimes drawing back and then blowing warm air lightly along the moist length, once even nipping at the seam with his teeth. Groping for the last of his self-control, Bond made an effort not to thrust upward too vigorously until he felt his climax approaching. At which point, he unclenched his fingers, not wanting to impel Q to swallow if he didn't want to, and felt his muscles tighten, then pulse, as he spent ferociously…but Q swallowed anyway. A moment later, he slid upward and forward to grind his hips against Bond's, coming hard against the tautly muscled surface of his stomach.

There was silence for a long time, save for their harsh breathing, which gradually slowed, and Bond finally reached for the flannel to scrub away most of the mess that was gluing them together, before drawing Q's head onto his shoulder.

"Eve was wrong, then," Q murmured, lashes hovering over sleepy eyes. "Some men over forty _can_ perform more than once a night."

"Don't be cheeky," Bond managed to reply into a mass of tangled, silky hair. "Of course I can. And Eve knows better than to deny it."

"Now who's being cheeky," Q said, yawning. "And it's hardly polite to boast about previous conquests while in bed."

"No conquest involved," Bond protested mildly, relaxing as he felt Q's fingers spread over the rise of his pectorals. "And that, um, thing is rather old history; we're friends."

"Mm hmm," said Q with a hint of his usual snark, but it was obvious from the gentleness in his voice that he knew this to be true.

They were lying still, in a comfortable, companionable silence, eyes closed, when something leaped to the forefront of Bond's (barely) conscious mind.

"Tell me your name," he said drowsily, pulling Q more closely against his side. "Your real one."

There was a moment of silence, and then, "Against regulations," mumbled Q, yawning for a second time. "But I might, someday." Bond hesitated, intrigued by Q's refusal to say more, and wondering whether he should take this further, before realizing that his Quartermaster had simply fallen asleep.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Bond woke at dawn; it was habit, really. He rarely overslept, even when he had been pleasantly and passionately occupied the night before. Turning his head, he could see tangled curls going every which way on the pillow beside his, and a thin, pale, lithe-limbed body curled beneath the rumpled sheets. He propped himself on one elbow and surveyed the wreckage of his bedclothes, listening to the soft purr of Q's breathing, and watching his dark lashes flutter lightly above those high, angled cheekbones.

Q's smile, when he came awake, was open and guileless, and totally unexpected. The morning sun lightened the changeable, pale jade color of his green eyes, and Bond felt moved to an almost platonic admiration of Q's peculiar, unconventional beauty—all bone and sinew, silky skin and angles, boyishly gamin features. But it was that smile, that surprisingly sweet and candid smile, that made Bond's heart turn over in his breast. This was nothing like the cool, efficient, critical Q of Headquarters, and Bond actually found himself wanting to delay the moment when Q would reassume the brisk, professional demeanor everybody at MI6 associated with him.

Besides, he was looking forward to repeat performances, in the future. Surely Q's surrender meant that he was willing to come to some sort of agreement. As long as they could avoid becoming too emotionally compromised…

Because James Bond did _not_ have lovers. He did _not._ He had conquests. He had marks he was obligated to seduce. He had, on very rare occasions, friends-with-benefits, or fuck buddies, or whatever it was people called them nowadays. He did _not_ have live-in relationships, and he avoided commitment like the plague.

The very idea of spending leisurely quality time with somebody, once they got out of bed, had almost never appealed to him. Bond, who avoided self-analysis whenever possible, supposed that this stemmed from his stubborn refusal to let anybody get close to him after his parents' sudden deaths, his inability to find warmth and emotional satisfaction in physical intimacy. The fact that there had been literally nobody to nurture him once his parents were out of the picture—old Kincade had been fond of him, but had no legal rights to look after him—had hardened him to the belief that he was best off on his own. From the moment he last saw his mother to the night he bedded a woman for the first time, nobody ever ruffled his hair, kissed his cheek, or put a hand on him in kindness.

One of the reasons he steered clear of relationships that lasted longer than a handful of sexual trysts was that he dreaded the inevitable: the needy female would become besotted, demand more time of him, cling to him, insist upon answers to questions, attempt to wriggle her way into his life. Given his profession, and the likelihood that he would never make it to old age, Bond felt that burdening himself with a long term connection was tantamount to leaping into a scalding bath.

Bond had realized he was getting into hot water from the moment he got back from Austria and saw the look of cautious, muted anticipation on his Quartermaster's narrow, strangely beautiful face. Oddly enough, this hadn't blunted his determination to get that delicate body into his arms, and to taste that pale olive skin, those darkly pink lips. Problems posed by the fact that he worked with the young man, had to see him, professionally, on a regular basis, hadn't blunted his desire, either.

And now they had done the deed—to use an old, hackneyed expression—and he was experiencing none of the usual urges to extricate himself from the intimacy of the situation. He had no desire to politely expel this naked, tousled young person from his bed and send him on his way.

Oh shit.


	9. How to Handle a Double O

**  
**_More introspection (Q's this time) and more sex._

* * *

**Chapter 9: How to Handle a Double O**

Q sat quietly at the table in James Bond's kitchen, yawning intermittently as he munched on a slice of thick, crusty toast, crisped to perfection but not burnt, and layered with sweet butter. A similarly perfect cup of coffee stood on a saucer in front of him.

007 might not be much of a cook, as his gleaming and obviously unused pots, pans, and variety of untouched kitchen appliances indicated, but he knew how to prepare an excellent slice of toast. His expensive coffee maker turned out a cup of java that could only be described as ambrosial.

When he wasn't yawning or rubbing his eyes, Q studied Bond from beneath his lashes, fully aware that he was being studied in turn. He was more than a little astonished that his host had not, as yet, coolly hinted that he should finish dressing himself and depart. He had, in fact, expected to be asked to leave immediately after their erotic marathon of the previous night. Q could read nothing of Bond's state of mind from his calm, inscrutable expression, and wasn't even sure he wanted to know _what_ Bond was thinking.

Q was under no illusion that he was what somebody like Bond would call a catch. He wasn't a tall, buff, classically handsome and masculine figure of a man, like that wretched Albert Doinel, for example, or three or four of the other Double O agents. Yes, a number of people had called him pretty, faunlike, attractive—Moneypenny had once said to him, quite earnestly, "Q, you are the most delicious thing, and should go out and find somebody to shag you silly!"—but he was no example of rugged male beauty, and he, like the rest of MI6, knew what Bond's taste generally ran to. Usually statuesque, often exotic, always gorgeous to look at, and almost always female, endowed with the requisite sultry eyes and lips and curvaceous bodies. Q now knew, from re-reading Bond's files, that there had been a handful of men, but they had been marks, not people he had necessarily chosen to sleep with. So why had Bond pursued him, flirted with him, made overtures? Q stared down at his fragile-looking, gangly self, barefoot, clad in jeans, and a white tee shirt of Bond's that was much too big for him. He knew, without having to look in a mirror, that his uncombed hair was even more gravity-resistant than usual, and he sighed so gustily that his paper napkin flew off his plate.

He started with genuine surprise when Bond spoke to him, his voice a little husky with the vestiges of sleep.

"Another?" Bond was gesturing at Q's now empty plate.

Q coughed on some crumbs and cleared his throat, then stalled for a moment by fumbling for his glasses and putting them on. "No, thank you. But that was excellent toast. And coffee. Is there any tea in your shiny steel and marble pantry?"

Bond raised an eyebrow. "I haven't got a pantry," he replied, with a half smile. "But there's tea, including Earl Grey, in the cabinet to your left. I can't believe you want any, after all that coffee."

Q flushed. "No, I don't want any, actually. I was simply wondering."

"You're welcome to investigate the contents of my kitchen, but I'm warning you that you'll find nothing interesting."

"Unless I happen to be a connoisseur of Scotch."

"Impudent cub." This time Bond did smile, and Q maintained an expression of casual curiosity with a great deal of effort. "The next time you visit me, I'll remember to stock up on food, if not the ghastly sort of edibles your generation goes in for."

Ah. There it was. The implication that there would be future encounters. Q was both surprised and not surprised. Surprised because he hadn't thought Bond would want him more than once, and not surprised because, well, his coworkers at MI6 often joked that if there ever was a sex addict in their midst, it was 007. Bond did not have relationships per se, he made no commitments to the people he fucked, but he was hardly the man to turn down good sex as long as there were no real ties, no strings attached. Q knew that Bond knew that Q was too professional a colleague to make any emotional demands on him.

"What sort of ghastly edibles do you mean?" Q said crisply, relieved to hear his own voice sounding so cool and matter of fact. "And I don't know that I'm a typical product of my generation."

They had fallen almost automatically into the irony-laden, snarky banter that comprised their mode of communication at MI6. It occurred to Q that this was because it made them both feel more at ease with the situation.

"If I teach you nothing else," Bond retorted, with a smile that was slightly smug as well as slightly suggestive, "at least I can give you some insights into the art of fine dining. Will you have dinner with me next weekend?"

"Um. Friday would be, um…would work for me." Q could have kicked himself for being so bloody acquiescent, but he knew, as well, that it would have been almost impossible to say no.

"I'll wager your kitchen is stocked with little more than frozen dinners, canisters of Earl Grey, and jars of instant coffee."

Q's kitchen was, in fact, almost barren of food, but he refused to acknowledge this.

"Whereas the rest of your flat," Bond continued, "is probably full of computer terminals, 3-D printers, and prototypes for various surveillance devices and other gadgets."

"You'd be surprised," Q replied stiffly. "There's a rather crude American expression I once heard in a movie—'Don't shit where you eat.' And I don't. That is, my flat isn't exactly crowded with tech and gadgetry. Just a few essentials. I try to keep my life and my job at least somewhat separate."*

"Really?" said Bond, a little dubiously. "That's difficult to believe of someone who seemingly spends more time in a laboratory, messing about with schematics and computer hardware, than anyplace else."

"You forget I have an army of technicians at my beck and call," Q said, trying in vain to smooth down his hair. "I don't always need to take my work home with me. If you don't believe me, you can come and see for yourself."

There was a brief pause, during which Q steeled himself to hear Bond's negative reply, and he nearly swallowed his coffee the wrong way when 007 said quietly, in a contemplative voice that gave no hint of what he was thinking, "Yes. I should like to."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"What's the good news?" Moneypenny asked Q as they queued for tea in the staff canteen, shortly past four on Monday afternoon. "You must have spent a productive weekend. Did you save the world with one click of your mouse, or simply de-activate some billionaire drug lord's access to satellite porn?"

"What makes you think I had a productive weekend?" Q said guardedly. "I didn't do much in the line of work." (Unless one considered rolling about in bed with 007 to be a work-related activity.)

"You look pleased with yourself," Moneypenny retorted. "Or pleased, period. Dare I ask whether you finally went out and got yourself la—oh, look! It's that ridiculous Hanson trying to put the moves on 008. Little does she know it's _you_ he's mooning over."

"008 probably sprinkles testosterone on his morning cereal," Q snorted, glancing at the man as he extricated himself from the clinging hands of the Head of Medical's secretary. "But he's not losing sleep over me. He may well take Hanson up on her offer. He's willing to shag anything that moves, be it female, male, or…or…"

"A lamppost," said Moneypenny, to Q's bewilderment. "According to 007. What was I saying? Oh yes, that you look terribly pleased with yourself. Did you get a pay raise?"

Q roared with laughter, and as this was rather unusual behavior for him, Moneypenny raised both eyebrows before joining in.

If he was looking pleased with himself it could have been because Bond had not kicked him out of his flat Saturday morning. After breakfast, and following that ambiguous conversation about the contents of their kitchens, they had sat in comfortable silence, reading the newspaper and passing sections of it back and forth between them (Q was accustomed to reading his news online, but found this practice quite enjoyable), until Q murmured that he really should get dressed, and that he had no wish to intrude on 007's time. Bond had stood up, looked at him a little quizzically, almost as if he wanted to grin, and said that certainly Q must do as he wished.

"You probably have things on your schedule that don't involve MI6, and I shouldn't keep you from them," Q had mumbled, hoping he didn't sound like an idiot.

"Is there anything you need to rush off to, Q?"

"Well," Q had answered, trying not to stammer. "No. Not really, but I was going to finish working on an augmented hard drive for a laptop—a reconstituted MacBook Air with a lot of bells and whistles added."

"Hmm," said Bond ruminatively, dropping back onto the sofa again. "Sounds like somebody's idea of fun, if not mine. Although"—he looked down at himself, then back at Q—"speaking of laptop hard drives, I have something that really ought to be seen to, if you think you have the time."

That had been rather presumptuous of Bond, Q thought wryly, if not downright arrogant, but he had been strangely happy to oblige. And 007 had seemed happy to reciprocate. Two hours later, washed, dressed, and fortified with tea, he had let Bond walk him to the door. They hadn't kissed, but before the door closed Bond had reached out to run his hand lightly down Q's neck, from jawline to shoulder, and looked at him intently, without smiling. Q felt a funny kind of shiver run through him, now, just thinking about it.

"Cat got your tongue, dear?" Moneypenny was saying briskly, and Q, jolted out of his reminiscing, told himself sternly to get a grip.

"Not at all," he said, reaching for his tea and watching as 008 and Hanson did some negotiating on the other side of the room. "I was just thinking that the Double Os need a bit more portable firepower than they have now. My predecessor was working on a foldable, packable, mini long-range rifle, semi-automatic, with a precision zoom lense. Not the sort of thing Q Branch has been producing lately…but it could have its uses."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The art of fine dining, as Bond had put it, was obviously something he knew very much about. Which was hardly surprising, considering the man's perfectly tailored suits, expensive cologne, and all-round general knowledge of literature and the visual and performing arts. Q wasn't going to talk Shakespeare with him, the way he did with Tanner, but he had the feeling that Bond might be nearly as well-versed in the works of the Bard as they were.

The week had gone by with amazing rapidity, considering Q's apprehensions about Friday, and he had only run into 007 once, in the anteroom to M's office. Arriving to deliver a sheaf of decoded documents to Moneypenny, he had seen Tanner ushering Bond into the inner sanctum. Bond had nodded at him and said, "Q," with an impersonal smile, and Q, conscious of Moneypenny's eyes on him, had replied, "007," with an equally impersonal dip of his chin.

He had deposited the documents on Moneypenny's desk (he had emailed her the electronic files earlier, but M wanted the original hard copy with handwritten notes), mumbled something about needing to lecture his staff and interns, and made a hasty exit, aware that both Moneypenny and Tanner had turned curious looks in his direction.

Now he was sitting across the table from Bond in a small restaurant he had never heard of, perusing a menu whose contents might as well have been written in gobbledygook. The dark wood-paneled walls absorbed light from the candles that stood on each table, whereas the starched white table linens gleamed, as did the heavy cutlery and wine glasses. Was Bond making an effort to impress him, or did he simply eat like this all of the time?

As it turned out, Bond probably _did_ eat like this much of the time. He knew the waiters by their first names, and appeared to be on good terms with the maître d' and the sommelier. He ordered something called _draniki_ with red caviar, and something else that looked like stuffed, roast duck, and a green salad. Q asked for Chicken Kiev, the only item on the menu he recognized, and then crunched his way through the delicately fried cutlet, crisply breaded and filled with garlic-and-herb butter, with such a beatific look on his face—it was _delicious_ —that he caught Bond smiling (or was it smirking?) when he raised his eyes to ask the waiter for more mineral water.

Bond declined any sort of pudding, and when Q asked why, he said, "I don't think it wise to eat too heavily this evening," in a level voice that sent Q's pulse rate up a decided notch.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

James Bond was a sadistic fiend. Or, he could be when he put his mind to it.

They had returned to Bond's flat (Q sensed that they had already crossed some kind of barrier, in that Bond usually went to the other person's dwelling, rather than his own, to conduct his amours), and wandered into the bedroom, where the blinds were closed only enough to cut off an outsider's view, not enough to block out the night sky and the glittering lights of nearby high-rises. After some desultory talk, Bond had unbuttoned Q's shirt and toyed with his hair—he truly seemed to have a _thing_ for those dark, silky, and rebellious waves—and then finally pulled the shirt off Q's shoulders. And then, after starting to unfasten his own buttons, he had launched into a one-sided conversation about Kyoto, where they had spent three frustrating and rain-soaked days together. All the while, unbuttoning his shirt with excruciating slowness.

Q bit his lip because he was damned if he was going to let 007 start with the mind games again.

"It's a pity we had no time to visit the Shinto shrines in Nara," Bond was saying in a calm, soothing voice as he slid one arm out of the shirt. "They have a multitude of tame deer on the premises; they're sacred animals and can't be harmed. Tourists like to pet them."

"Oh. Hmm."

"They remind me of you—they're smaller than our deer, elegant, and spindly, but they're determined little beasts. They go after handouts and tourists' picnic baskets with single-minded determination."

"How nice to be compared to a herd of lunch-stealing quadrupeds."

"Oh, they don't need to steal. Some elderly ladies—grannies and pensioners, I imagine—sit outside the shrine precincts, selling packets of rice wafers for visitors to feed them with."

"Lovely." Banter, Q thought, was all very well, but he was eager to move on to other things.

"Yes," murmured Bond, coming closer but not too close. "You have the look of those deer. All liquid eyes and fragile, spindly limbs, and an occasionally confrontational attitude."

Honestly, Bond could be insufferable.

"Stop talking about the bloody deer," Q said desperately, and flung off what remained of his clothes, leaving them in a heap on the floor.

"Patience, Quartermaster," Bond murmured—for a moment Q almost wanted to hit him—and then he had the audacity to grin as he undressed, still slowly, keeping Q's eyes riveted on the skin that was being revealed bit by bit. When he was naked, golden and hard and perfectly proportioned, he opened the drawer in his nightstand and removed a capped tube and a packet of condoms. He looked at Q, a little questioningly, and Q caught his breath and nodded.

"I've been tested," Bond said in a low voice. "And I'm fine. But if you want me to…" And he gestured at the condoms.

"I, um," Q said hoarsely, and then cleared his throat. "I…I trust you. About that, I mean."

"You mean, you don't trust me about anything else?" Bond's face registered amusement, but he came to Q and put both hands on his shoulders.

"I'd be a fool to," Q replied, but then he lunged at Bond and crushed their mouths together, because he wanted, more than anything, to _stop talking_.

Three minutes of deep, increasingly messy kisses later, they were grappling with each other, twisting their bodies together on the bed. Q licked the tiny beads of sweat from Bond's throat, nibbled his collarbones, pressed his lips against the rippling muscles of his abdomen, and then ran his tongue the length of that rigid, imperious cock. It gave him such pleasure to hear Bond moan that he did this for a while longer, alternating licks with sucking, only lifting his head when Bond seized him by the hair and gasped, "Wait, Q, stop."

Q moved upward and shifted until they were side by side, and then lay, waiting, as Bond dealt with the tube of lubricant, slicking his fingers and then mouthing Q's lower lip very gently as he slid one in. Q shivered and bucked a little—it had been such a long time, and he had tightened and clenched automatically—but Bond was careful and gradual before adding another finger. Q stifled a whimper when the third one went in, and when all three were withdrawn, but he closed his eyes and tugged at Bond's hips to let him know that he was ready. The inward slide of Bond's cock had him moaning against a hard, scarred shoulder, but 007 was considerate, giving Q time to re-accustom himself to the burn and the stretch, rolling his hips slowly so as to brush against Q's prostate. It was only when Q had relaxed and arched upward in silent invitation that he began to thrust.

The overwhelming assault on his pleasure centers was such that Q was dizzy with sensory overload. It was almost like having an out-of-body experience, watching himself while feeling everything that was happening, that was being done to him. He could hear, as though from a distance, the sounds of Bond pounding against him, the faint, stuttering _oh_ 's that broke from his own lips with every thrust, almost see the way his head thrashed from side to side on the long, pale stem of his throat. The fierceness of his orgasm brought him back to himself as he shouted against the underside of Bond's jaw, muscles squeezing tightly around the hardness within him, causing Bond to gasp and groan. Then he lay, limp and trembling, while Bond achieved his own release, panting harshly, his hands gripping Q's hips as he ground himself deep inside.

In a little while, their breathing began to slow, and they disengaged, carefully. Bond felt rather than saw Q wince, so he pulled back and out slowly, brushing a finger lightly across Q's wet eyelashes. Q, his eyes closed, heard Bond whisper, "Did it…are you alright, Q?" He felt too energy-depleted and euphoric to speak, but his fingers found Bond's wrist and gave it a slight squeeze of reassurance.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

After drowsing for an hour, both woke to find themselves very thirsty, and so, after washing a bit, they made their way to the kitchen where Q gulped iced water while Bond unearthed an only partially depleted bottle of white wine from his refrigerator. Q watched him drink, watched the muscles of his throat move as he swallowed, and then allowed Bond to lead him back to the bedroom.

It was actually blissful to lie there in that incredibly comfortable bed, cradled in the crook of Bond's arm and watching the rise and fall of his chest—as smooth as his own, though so much broader—in the dim, gold light of the bedside lamp. Q's fingers drew little, aimless patterns on that impressive surface, but when Bond turned on his side so as to caress him in turn, Q stopped him, and then propped himself up on one elbow.

"Let me see you properly," he said in his most authoritative Quartermaster's voice, as he gave 007 a little push. Bond sighed and rolled onto his back again, displaying himself to Q's scrutiny. Q scrutinized him avidly, green eyes wide and fascinated.

"You're actually wonderful to look at," he blurted out with unexpected and uncharacteristic admiration, and then could sense, through his own embarrassment at having said such a thing, that Bond was touched. So he promptly reverted to his usual demeanor, and said coolly, "Or you would be, if you contrived to shave more than once every three days. Hasn't the stubbly look gone out of fashion?"

"You're stubbly now," Bond retorted, amused, running a hand along Q's jaw. Q closed his eyes, leaning into the touch and then twined slim, sinuous limbs around Bond's, nearly purring with satisfaction. He heard Bond sigh again, and could tell that he was smiling.

"You're very like a cat, Q."

"Why do you insist upon comparing me with animals?"

"A thin, clever cat, with an attitude, and spots."

"I haven't got any spots."

"Little leopard."

"I shall have to think of something appropriate to call you, then, Bond."

" _James_."

Q frowned and stared at the pillow slip. "On special occasions, perhaps," he said flatly. "I don't want to be too lavish with your first name, 007."

"Why, Q?'

Q frowned again. "Just because." His fingers toyed with the edges of the sheet. "You know."

Bond spoke quietly, his voice almost gentle. "Surely you don't regret any of this?"

"Regret is unprofessional. Don't you remember…that's what our previous M said. Like Edith Piaf. _Je ne regrette rien_."

"Ah. Do you speak French?"

"Enough to get by. I speak better Italian, possibly because I had years of Latin. Some Spanish. Some Russian. About fifty words of Chinese."

"You _do_ have a clever tongue, Q. In several respects."

"Others thought so. Girls said it was positively fiendish."

"Well, well. You've slept with girls too?"

"Yes, a few times. At uni. Women aren't really my preference, but in those days, if a girl and I liked each other, and she wanted to express that in a physical way, then, well, I had no objection."

"You prefer men, though."

"I always have."

"And here you are, looking so pretty, and fragile, and virginal."

Q bristled just a little. "I may not have anything approaching your level of experience, Bond, but I'm not virginal."

"I didn't say I thought you were a virgin. I never really thought that. But you've a rather virginal quality… it doesn't even have to do with sex. Maybe it's your aloofness. Or your preoccupation with your work. Or your defensive backtalk. Mind those sharp elbows, would you?"

Q eased the offending elbow out of Bond's ribs and rested his head against his shoulder. Bond's hand immediately buried itself in his rumpled curls.

"This hair," Bond said absently, petting it, "is like a physical manifestation of the Chaos Theory. It's like an untamable animal."

"Well, don't assume you can tame it. Or me."

"I enjoy a good challenge," retorted Bond with drowsy pleasure. "You must be aware of that by now."

"Oh, I had you figured out long ago."

This was something of a lie, but it sounded clever, and Q felt badly in need of cleverness at the moment. He also felt, still, a little out of his depth with a man like Bond, but was bloody well determined not to let that show.

"You never cease to surprise me, little leopard."

"Good," Q replied smugly, rolling out of reach and then out of bed. "I'm starving"

"You're joking," Bond said in amazement, glancing at Q's flat stomach and delicate frame. "After that dinner? Where the bloody hell do you put it all?"

"I have a speedy metabolism," Q replied, nimbly evading the hand extended in his direction. "Get up, please, 007. If you're going to fuck me, the least you can do is feed me afterward."

* * *

*** I think that quote came from the film "Moonstruck" (1987), starring Cher, Danny Aiello, Nicolas Cage, and Olympia Dukakis (directed by Norman Jewison).**


	10. Love is a Battlefield

**Chapter 10: Love is a Battlefield**

"St. Petersburg," M said laconically, sliding a folder across his desk. Bond reached out and took it with a mental sigh.

A week at the very least, this assignment would take. And while it wasn't as dangerous as many of the missions he'd undertaken for MI6, it was going to be time consuming. And probably boring. Bond supposed he should be grateful, at his age, that he wasn't expected to rappel down the glass walls of skyscrapers, or race a motorcycle across roof tops, every time he was sent out on a job.

He open the folder and thumbed through the papers, as M watched. Blueprints of a secret military installation, being built by a well-funded corps of mercenaries somewhere in the Pacific, had been disovered by an ex-pat British engineer with ties to MI6. He had been murdered, but it seemed the blueprints had not been unearthed. Perhaps they were hidden in or near his St. Petersburg flat. They were to be retrieved, if possible, and—if possible—the killer terminated.

There would be backup, if necessary, from 008 (of all people), who was going to be in Moscow on a mission of his own.

"I believe a week will suffice," M said, echoing Bond's own assumption. "You leave on Monday."

"Yes sir," Bond replied blandly, thinking that this would allow him a few days to prepare, and give him a night or two with Q…if Q was amenable. His young Quartermaster had been unavailable for ten days, a state of affairs Bond was beginning to find rather frustrating. Yes, yes, everybody knew he had a difficult job, often requiring long hours; everyone knew he was one of the most dedicated and diligent employees of MI6. But he, like all the rest of them, was entitled to time off. Q was either avoiding him, Bond reflected, frowning, or he was simply playing hard to get.

Exiting M's office, he stopped at Moneypenny's desk, where she and Tanner were scowling over a series of charts.

"Oh, 007," Moneypenny sighed, looking up. "God, this is _such_ a mess. The information from that infuriating Albert Doinel. A lot of it doesn't add up."

"And why doesn't that surprise me," Bond drawled with an ironic smile. "I never thought it was worth it, bringing Doinel in. Isn't he in prison?"

"Yes, but he wants to speak with us again. Here." She rolled her eyes, frowning. "Well. Don't you look smart!"

Bond was wearing a new suit, as impeccably tailored as always, fitted close to his trim yet formidable physique.

"About your assignment," Moneypenny went on, with an approving glance at his powder-blue tie. You won't need anything beyond the usual, in the way of equipment. And M's told you about 008."

"I don't anticipate any difficulties," Bond said, raising an eyebrow. "See you in a week."

"Don't forget you're to consult the Quartermaster before you leave," Moneypenny murmured. She was eyeing him steadily, and Bond had the distinct feeling that she was studying his face for a change of expression.

"Yes," Bond replied briskly. "I'll see him now. What's that you've got for me?"

She was brandishing a brown envelope in his face.

"Rubles, of course," she said in a chiding voice, putting the envelope into his hand. "Now off you go to Q Branch. Oh, and tell Q I love him to bits but he's to return my eyebrow tweezers _today_ , or I'll make him sorry."

"Return your _what_?!"

"He said he needed them to dissect some gadget or other," Moneypenny said plaintively. "But that was two days ago. _Do_ try to remember, would you?"

"Of course," said Bond, inclining his head with mock courtesy. "I'll remind him." He turned to leave, but not before he caught the look that passed between M's secretary and his Chief of Staff.

After all of his years at MI6, first as a Navy commander recruited by the Secret Service for field work, then as a Double O, Bond had never quite understood how the agency's unofficial grapevine functioned. It was the staff members' conduit for rumor and gossip, and he had never had much to do with it himself, or listened to the gossip that made the rounds periodically.

He knew, naturally, that a certain amount of the gossip that circulated regularly was about him, or involved him in some way, but never gave this much consideration. (Q would no doubt call him a conceited ass, but he was well aware that he was nothing short of an MI6 legend.) Moneypenny sometimes teased him about it. Hanson and other young women of her ilk attempted to benefit by it. He had seen the Q Branch minions stare at him, half awe-struck, half-critical, whenever he materialized in the Quartermaster's office, or the computer lab.

He didn't think anybody at MI6 had mentally connected Agent 007 and the Quartermaster, or even had any suspicions about them—apart from the redoubtable Eve Moneypenny and the keen-eyed, stoic Tanner. And possibly a handful of Q's minions. Not that any of these were likely to voice their opinions on the subject to the rest of the staff. Moneypenny—if she really did know anything—was probably amused by it. And Tanner, with whom Bond had always got on well, was not the man to tell tales behind one's back, to the boss or anyone else. It was highly unlikely that Tanner would ever say anything to M about an employee's private life unless he felt it was endangering the agency's security, or, in the case of a Double O agent, proving to be too much of a _distraction_.

Q, lanky and lithe, black-lashed eyes green in the sunlight, agate grey in the shade, voice cool and meticulous in Bond's ear whenever he went on missions, deep-pink lips warm and silky against his, long, clever fingers curling perfectly round his cock, had proved to be both a surprise _and_ a distraction. Bond didn't think a mere handful of sessions in the bedroom were going to get his preoccupation with the young man out of his system.

Besides, he honestly _liked_ Q, even if one were to disregard the erotic side of things.

And now M was sending him on a mission to Russia. Bugger it.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Q was in the computer lab, at his work station, staring at one of the wall screens with a slight frown. His face, in the halo of his dark, wavy hair, looked pale and intent, but he blinked a little when Bond strode into the vast white room, heading in his direction.

What an oddly delectable enigma he was, Bond thought as he crossed the vast, echoing space filled with programmers and hackers clattering at their keyboards. Beautiful. Young. Sometimes too fucking brilliant for his own good; that laser-like intelligence made him too cautious about…too cautious of Bond's essentially good intentions. (Bond kept telling himself that his intentions were harmless and perfectly reasonable.) Q's feelings for Bond—if he had any, which Bond thought he might—were neatly concealed beneath a veneer of professionalism mixed with youthful wariness. Bond had noted the slight tenseness that came into his face whenever the field agent stood too close to him in the computer lab, the usually unsmiling mouth that told everyone at MI6, Bond included, that he was not to be taken lightly. Q might smile outside of the office, might be passionate and even sweetly yielding when he approached his climax in Bond's embrace, but here, at work, he was never anything but sharp-edged and precise. There was no question about it, Bond acknowledged to himself, his Quartermaster was not, and probably never would be, an easy read.

"007," Q said in a clipped voice, meeting Bond's glance head on, and Bond's senses flared as he took in that wide, mobile mouth, those eyes with their changing hues of green. "Tanner's explained to me what you need. It's ready for you." Q gestured at the two small cases on his work station. "And your new earpiece…we've made them even less visible and more discrete."

"Really," Bond replied. "Considerate of you."

"I take it your Walther is still serviceable?"

"Quite."

"Your radio's in the case. It's now waterproof, to a depth of twenty feet."

"Excellent."

"I expect you'll find some way to destroy it, regardless."

"No doubt."

"And we've taken the liberty of giving you a new tracker. It's, uh, sewn into the waistband of your trousers."

"You must be joking."

"Standard procedure as of last week, 007. All field agents will need to have them."

"Hah. You're just trying to make certain I don't abandon my trousers, little leopard."

This last statement was uttered very quietly, so that nobody other than the Quartermaster could hear. Bond leaned nonchalantly against his work station and watched the Head of Q Branch turn several crimson shades of mortification.

"Perhaps we should have given you one of the old, disposable trackers instead," Q said icily, glaring. "The kind you have to swallow."

"I can think of other things I'd rather swallow."

If looks could kill, Bond thought with amusement, he would be lying on the floor right now. But it was irresistible…the sight of Q with his pale, angular face and vulnerable-looking neck flushed pink, and his eyes brilliant with irritation. It was worth making Q angry, and anyway, wouldn't the make-up sex be unbelievably hot?

Besides, he was paying Q back, a little, for having kept him at arm's length for well over a week, for no good reason and with no good explanation.

And if Q was still in a temper, later, angry sex would undoubtedly be every bit as hot as make-up sex. As long as they made up, afterward.

"Your papers and radio, 007," Q said, handing them over. His voice was deceptively calm, but there was a light of battle in his eyes. "Oh yes, here's something new. This tie clip has a concealed video camera that sends information to your laptop, as well as to us if you're within range."

"A charming novelty. As I said to one of your predecessors, you must get them in the stores for Christmas."

Q gritted his teeth. "For pity's sake, try not to lose it. Even 008 is less cavalier with his tech than you are."

"I'll do my best, thank you," replied Bond, aware that the minions around them were listening in on this acerbic exchange. Really, a little punishment, in private and of a particular sort, would do Q no harm.

"You're entirely welcome." Q's eyes were now the color of an Arctic glacier under cloudy skies: a chilly grey-green.

"Oh, don't forget," Bond whispered blithely, leaning close enough that his breath was warm in the Quartermaster's ear. "Eve wants her tweezers back. Immediately. And I notice no difference in the configuration of your eyebrows."

Q's eyes had narrowed to a dangerous degree. It was the kind of look a cat might give an impudent canary through an intervening windowpane. "Manuelli's been using them since yesterday. To salvage _what's left_ of the recording device in your Omega Seamaster. You can tell Eve I'll have them for her this evening."

"Right," said Bond, taking a step back for the benefit of Q's staff. They had been staring at the two of them since Bond's entrance. "By the way. Have a look at this. The screen appears to be loose."

He handed his mobile phone to Q, and Q stared at the screen, where the words "Will I see you this evening?" were clearly visible.

Q's thumbs moved nimbly across the onscreen keypad, and when he handed it back, the words "You may regret it" had replaced the first message.

"Hmm," Bond said musingly. "I doubt that. Well, Quartermaster. I'll bid you and your staff good afternoon. No, there's no need to see me out. You do, as you've reminded me before, technically outrank me."

He raised two fingers to his brow in a sardonic salute.

There were several coughs and sputters of suppressed laughter from the Q Branch minions. Bond saw Q's fingers clench around his Scrabble mug, and knew that he probably wanted to hurl it in his general—or specific—direction. At the same time, a tantalizingly defiant little smile appeared, replacing, if only for a brief moment, the scowl on that narrow, high-cheekboned face.

Ah. If that was the way his Quartermaster wanted to play it…

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Close acquaintance hasn't improved my opinion of your manners," Q said resignedly. "If anything, they seem to be getting worse. Not that I should have expected better from a professional brute."

"I have excellent manners," Bond protested smoothly. "And my brutality is of a very refined type."

Q snorted against Bond's bristly jaw. They were tangled together beneath Bond's expensive linen sheets, where they had been for the past hour. Q had appeared at Bond's door at half seven and, by tacit agreement and without speaking, they had launched themselves into a heated bout of angry sex (Bond wasn't really _angry_ but he could feign anger very nicely), which at some point turned into make-up sex. The latter came about after Bond ripped and tore Q's shirt from his body, only to be informed that the shredded garment had been his very best one.

It hadn't exactly been _rough_ sex, because neither of them had struck the other, and the wrestling had been of the sort that produced neither muscle sprains nor marks (although Q would complain of bruises later on), but what had begun as a great deal of grappling and twisting about on the floor—a markedly unfair tussle, calling to mind a fight between a whippet and a pit bull—ended up in bed, where Bond had Q pressed to the mattress, wrists pinioned above his head. By this time, however, they had both begun to laugh, in panting gusts, and Q, flushed a lovely rosy color from his exertions, sighed as Bond's tongue ran the length of his throat, delved into the little hollows above his collarbones, and slid down the narrow valley that marked the center of his chest.

"I've got you now, my gorgeous techno-geek," Bond grunted into Q's sternum. He was slightly winded after having taken an elbow to the stomach, minutes earlier, but he and Q were still hiccupping with the remains of their laughter.

"I'm not gorgeous, and I'm sure as fuck not _yours_."

"Such language. I don't suppose you'd care to tell me," Bond murmured, still chuckling, "why you've been avoiding me."

"I haven't been avoiding you," Q said acidly. "I've been _busy_. Don't ask with what, because I won't tell you. And I never thought you'd be the possessive sort."

"I'm not possessive at all," Bond replied mildly, taking Q's hips in a firm grasp. "I have no desire to know what you do when you're not at work. I simply appreciate the courtesy of a reply to phone calls or voicemail."

"It was only one voicemail," said Q dismissively. "If you knew what I've had to contend with, the past few days, you'd— _OH!_ "

"Easy, Q," Bond whispered, holding him steady. He fought the urge to begin thrusting; the heat and tightness that gripped him were difficult to resist. Forcing himself to move slowly—if he didn't, he probably wouldn't last long—he reveled in the sounds coming from his Quartermaster's mouth, and the frantic clutch of Q's hands on his shoulder blades. He could feel Q's cock—and what a beautiful thing it was!—sandwiched between them, satin-smooth, slippery with pre-ejaculate, and very hard. Although the skin of Q's back was deliciously cool beneath his hands, that cock felt blazingly hot where it pressed against Bond's stomach as they moved and strained together.

Later, when they were both sated and exhausted, perspiring gently and sprawled all over the crumpled sheets, Bond murmured, "Wish me success in St. Petersburg," as he pulled his duvet up over Q's thin shoulders.

"Just your luck, Bond; I'll be in your ear most of the way."

"When I get back, I'd like to schedule a repeat performance, little leopard."

"Why do you keep calling me that?"

"I told you. Because you're very like a cat, and you still have spots."

"I _haven't got any_ spots." Q tugged at Bond's close-cropped hair for emphasis. "And my complexion is hardly relevant, as I've…"—he paused to yawn—"…said before."

"And because you won't tell me your real name." Bond drew the tip of one finger, very lightly like the brush of a feather, barely touching, from the sensitive skin below Q's ear down the side of his neck to his shoulder, then down over his chest, brushing a nipple, and heard Q give a faint, shivery moan in response.

Since their memorable first night, which he had engineered by asking Q to repair the loose handgrip on his Walther—not knowing (until later) that the sharp-eyed Quartermaster could determine that Bond himself had loosened it with the aid of a screwdriver—Bond had been thinking about a series of repeat performances. Not only thinking, but planning.

During their dinner out, on the eve of their second encounter, he had seen Q peering at him over the rim of his wine glass, his expression as serious and focused as a schoolboy's. Perhaps he was as perplexed about this series of events as Bond secretly was. For Bond, the whole thing—their mutual attraction, their intense sexual compatibility, the fact that he had pursued the young man so ardently—was still something of a mystery, barely rooted in the real world of MI6. And _after_ that dinner…well, there hadn't been much time devoted to thinking at all.

"Remind me that I owe you a new shirt," Bond mumbled into the dark curls obscuring most of Q's ear, before sleep overtook him.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

St. Petersburg was beautiful, and stately, and _cold_ , but Bond had little time to admire the architecture or visit any of the excellent eating places he had become familiar with over the years. Within a day he had gotten access to the dead engineer's flat, and less than twenty-four hours after that, located the blueprints he had been sent to find. Discovering the identity of the killer took a bit more doing, and involved getting cozy with the dead man's ex girlfriend, a stunning redhead by the name of Larissa Petrova.

The young woman was not unwilling to provide her ex's fellow Englishman with the name of the man who had threatened dear Noel, with whom she had remained friendly in spite of their breakup. And would Mr Bond come to dinner at her flat, where she could provide him with some of the tastiest _kulebiaka_ in the city?

Bond had known this was coming; it was nothing out of the common way for him or for any of the Double Os. Yet he faced the evening with a reluctance that he hid with his usual aplomb, and, at the end of it, allowed the flame-haired Larissa to lead him to her bedroom.

Early on in the proceedings, Bond made a tactical decision, and abandoned his earpiece. Well, perhaps not a _tactical_ decision, but as things heated up, he thought it might be diplomatic to spare the MI6 Quartermaster from having to listen to the sighs, groans, and cries of the voluptuous and very vocal Larissa as she arched and writhed and clawed at his back. Nearly blinded by a cascade of excessively-perfumed hair, enveloped in warm, humid flesh and heaving curves, he found himself thinking of a certain lean, cool body, light and flexible and responsive, waiting for him in London, and the weight of a silky head, with a gentle tickle of wayward curls, against his thigh.

"Mission completed," he murmured another twenty-four hours later, having secured the blueprints and dispatched the murderer with a well-placed bullet.

"Excellent," came Q's voice, through the comm link. "That took two days less than planned. Your return flight leaves at eight tomorrow."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

It was a red letter day for the British secret service, Tanner said dryly when Bond appeared in the anteroom of M's office, freshly returned from Russia without a single injury (apart from the scratches on his back, which he mentioned to no one), and with all his tech intact.

The debriefing with Mallory went quickly and without incident, and after catching up on the latest news with Tanner, and exchanging some breezy banter with Moneypenny, Bond headed for Q Branch with his undamaged tech. If he felt any trepidation about facing the Head of Q Branch, he did not show it, and breezed into the computer lab with his usual confident stride, looking about the room for the Quartermaster.

"He's in Lab Two, sir," said Andrews, one of the holdovers from the previous Q's regime, a man of middle years, balding and professorial looking, who had once specialized in creating prototypes for _exploding pens_. If he had been shocked when the previous M selected a young computer wizard to head Q Branch during the Raoul Silva debacle, he had soon come round to appreciating the department's new boss. The new Quartermaster had treated Andrews with courtesy and tact, and Q's respect for certain types of old-school equipment such as sports cars augmented with firepower, tiny tracking devices, bugging detectors, and camera rings, had earned him the man's esteem.

"Thank you, Andrews," Bond said, and took a deep breath. As he walked through the glass door of Laboratory Two, he noticed that Q was wearing a plain white shirt, very well made, of heavy matte silk, that draped nicely over his fine-boned torso. His cardigan had been flung over the back of a chair. Perhaps Bond's occasionally caustic remarks about Q's wardrobe were beginning to take effect? Or perhaps this was simply a replacement for the shirt Bond had torn.

"I think you'll be pleased," Bond said calmly, "with the care I've taken with these nice Q Branch trinkets. I must say, they served me very well. The radio's untouched; as you know, I had no reason to summon aid or back up. And I hope you didn't take what you had to listen to on the comm link as anything other than business."

"I'm neither unprofessional nor a rabid sentimentalist," Q replied coolly, holding out his hand for the radio and earpiece. "I understood perfectly well what you were required to do."

"Rather an ordeal, don't you think?"

"Don't be daft," snorted Q, grimacing. "And it couldn't have been that bad. Wasn't she very beautiful?"

"Not as beautiful as you."

Q sighed and tapped the side of his head with a finger. "You've gone mad," he said with conviction.

"I won't lie and say it was completely devoid of merit. But it was more of a chore than a pleasure, certainly."

"Right," said Q, rolling his eyes. But Bond caught the fleeting smile on his Quartermaster's face, and realized that no, Q was not jealous…at least, not _seriously_ jealous.

"Was it wise to abandon your earpiece, 007? Simply to save my feelings?"

"Oh, on the contrary, saving your feelings had nothing to do with it," Bond said airily. "I just didn't want you to hear what a feeble performance I was turning in."

It was entertaining to watch Q fight a losing battle with stoicism—his eyes were alight, his mouth twitched and then he laughed aloud. His honest amusement brought an answering smile to Bond's eyes, and for a moment they stood still, an arm's length from each other, grinning like fools.

In the computer lab, on the other side of the glass wall, Q's minions were whispering and elbowing each other gleefully. Manuelli was making triumphant V for Victory signs, and Michaels was trying to get her to stop.

"You'd think, in a place like MI6, people would have respect for secrecy and privacy," Q muttered. "But no, they thrive on gossip, just like anywhere else. Every time one of the higher-ups, or a Double O agent, comes in here, their eyes telescope like cartoon characters. They probably think I'm shagging everybody. Or at least Tanner, and Eve, _and_ 008."

"You don't have enough time to shag everybody. Least of all 008," Bond retorted, with a grimace. "And no, you're mistaken. Your minions believe you're pure as the driven snow. They worry about you, and think you ought to break loose from your chains on occasion."

Q gave Bond one of his typical narrow-eyed looks. "And how did you come by this information, 007, if I might ask?"

Bond affected a look of total astonishment. "The grapevine, Quartermaster. The grapevine."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"I don't listen to grapevine gossip," Q said, half-closing his eyes with pleasure at the weight of Bond's body on his. "Unless I think it relates to national or international security. It's almost always about who's sleeping with whom, and assorted departmental missteps, anyway."

"No need to worry," Bond murmured, nuzzling sleepily against the sharp line of Q's jaw. "None of the higher-ups at MI6 gossip about _you_."

"Except when 008 offers to show me some defensive moves and then nearly rapes me in the training room."

"Did he really?" Bond exploded, coming suddenly awake. "The sly bastard—just wait until our next sparring match."

"Oh he didn't _really_ ," Q said with a shrug of distaste, dismissing 008 with a raised eyebrow. "He just kept trying to put his hands where he shouldn't."

"He's an idiot," muttered Bond, falling back onto the pillows. "And thinks he's the last word in the field when it comes to _l'amour_. Any one of his fellow field agents can do better than he in that department. Myself in particular."

"Oh shut up, Bond," Q snapped, with a kind of cheerful ferocity. "What do you know about _l'amour_ in the field? All you know about is how to be charming when the occasion calls for it, which wine to order with your smoked trout crèpes, and fucking people you will never, ever see again."

Q was smiling as he said this; it was clear that he wasn't angry, and Bond was both pleased and relieved. Q, he reasoned, was dedicated to the same cause as himself, and far too intelligent and fair-minded to be jealous, or to take what 007 was required to do in the line of duty as a personal affront.

In all honesty, Bond thought to himself, wryly, if the shoe were on the other foot, and Q had been having sex with other men—or women—for the sake of world security, Bond wasn't so sure that he wouldn't be annoyed by it, and—bloody fucking hell—jealous into the bargain.


	11. Holiday Fare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Q finds inspiration in the shower.

**Chapter 11: Holiday Fare**

It was barely a week until Christmas, and it occurred to Q, as he ferreted through an assortment of electronic parts in one of Q Branch's supply closets, that this might mean very little to James Bond

Mr Bond, 007, had no close relatives to speak of. How he had spent Christmas holidays past was anybody's guess, because nobody knew. Q—who had reason to believe he now knew more about the private Bond than most of the staff of MI6—very much doubted that 007 sent out cards, went Christmas shopping, or filled the punchbowl with good cheer and invited people to his flat to admire anything resembling a Christmas tree.

Q didn't exactly wax sentimental over holidays either, but he had laid some branches of fir across his minimalist mantelpiece and set a bowl of festive looking fruit on the dining table, in the midst of his papers and sketches of various types of tech he was working on for the Double O section in general and James Bond in particular.

Bond made his first visit to this domicile on Christmas Eve. They had been meeting at Bond's flat, and Q's eye-rolling at the partial disarray—there was still one unopened packing crate in the middle of his living room—had actually inspired Bond to arrange his furniture and possessions into something resembling order. On his third visit, Q was astonished to find that Bond had actually stocked his refrigerator with more than the bottle of vodka and limes Q had seen there during his first foray into the kitchen, and breakfast now consisted of more than toast and coffee.

Q, of course, was taking nothing for granted, and still wondered, when he allowed himself to wonder, when Bond was going to put an end to the current state of affairs. None of his research (in official files only, of course) indicated that 007 ever indulged in lengthy arrangements with any of his paramours, or that Bond had regarded any of them as much more than entertaining diversions and satisfaction for his senses.

What would Bond say when he wanted to bring their _whatever-it-was-you-want-to-call-it_ to a halt? "Well lad, it's been fun"? Or, "Time to get back to business, Q"? Or even, "I think this thing has run its course, don't you, Quartermaster?"

Whatever 007's plans—or lack of plans—for the future were, it seemed that his senses were being well satisfied these days. He was so energetic and passionate in bed—lately he had even become a little playful—that Q could only assume he was enjoying himself.

It also seemed to Q that Bond enjoyed his company for reasons beyond the sexual ones. When they weren't in bed, they began falling into talk about MI6 missions, and ways in which Q Branch could function better, whether security systems had been tightened enough since the Raoul Silva catastrophe, and whether the Double O division should be expanded. One night, after some very serious sex, they had actually sat up at Bond's kitchen table, Q's laptop open in front of them, and discussed new delivery methods for infecting an enemy organization's internal communication system with a virus that would be undetectable for up to a year. Q admitted, modestly, that in addition to being able to change traffic lights, unlock doors from a distance, re-route trains, signal satellite cameras, devise escape routes, and utilize CCTV to good effect, he was quite capable of getting access to encrypted material from other people's computers, and could hack into email accounts in less time than it took them to eat breakfast in the morning.

"I don't do that, naturally," he added, looking virtuously at 007 through the screen of his eyelashes. "I mean, it would be unethical. But I could, if I wanted to."

"A regular Lisbeth Salander*," Bond said, smirking. He put a hand on Q's cheek and gently turned his face in his direction. "Even to the way you look—thin, frail, dark-haired, intense. The only things missing are the tattoos and the body piercings."

"And the mohawk," Q said, frowning as he twisted part of his fringe round one of his fingers. "I read the book too, you know. An interesting character. I don't have her combative attitude, though."

"Oh?" murmured Bond, raising an eyebrow.

"I don't," Q protested, scowling as Bond's grin grew broader. "And I live a perfectly ordinary life outside of work—or I did until recently—and I don't have shady hacker connections—at least, not many—and I live in a perfectly ordinary flat."

"Really," said Bond, raising the other eyebrow. "So you say."

"Well, if you don't bloody believe me, come and see it!" Q said testily, fighting back a yawn.

"Right," Bond replied calmly, reaching over to unfasten the tie of his Quartermaster's toweling robe, and Q swallowed as those hard fingers carefully traced the smoothness and youthful contours of his pectorals. "Incorrigible pup. Invite me, and I will."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

So Q invited Bond for Christmas.

Before being employed by MI6, and indeed, up until the Skyfall incident, Q had inhabited a cozy, if ramshackle, flat in central London, inherited from a friend. It had a very reasonable rent, and he took the Tube to work. After Skyfall, however, and at M's insistence, he was moved to a block of new flats, into a building that was something along the lines of a safe house, with a security system and a lot of false names on the doorbell plates. He was told that he could only take the Tube to work if he wore a tracker, and on the evenings he stayed late—which had become most evenings—he was often driven home by a security guard.

It was to this home that he brought Bond. They had both felt obligated to put in an appearance at the staff holiday party, an annual affair involving catered food and much drink. Q had expected the event to be somber and slightly formal, rather like Mallory, but, thanks to the ready supply of liquor, it turned out to be anything but. He spent part of the evening sitting with Tanner and Moneypenny, watching their colleagues make asses of themselves, another half hour watching Bond casually flirt with various girls from the secretarial staff, Medical, and Q Branch, and the final twenty minutes dodging 008.

"Doesn't know how to take no for an answer, does he," Bond muttered as they drove to Q's flat in Bond's car.

"If you mean 008," Q answered, "then no, he doesn't. It's becoming tiresome, but I don't know that there's much to be done about it. A pity he isn't interested in Hanson. She's been playing up to him for weeks."

"Who _doesn't_ she play up to?" Bond muttered wryly, thinking of his own one-time jaunt with the generously-proportioned Hedwig.

"Oh, you know. Hanson's only interested in Double Os and other field agents. The rest of us—tech people, and those employees not endowed with washboard abs—are mere flyspecks on her radar screen."

"Well, I shouldn't worry." Bond shrugged and then his eyes lit up with a glint of humour. "If 008 should try anything too, er, physically intrusive at work, I've no doubt that your minions—Michaels in particular, or even Miss Manuelli—would put the mixed martial arts they've been practicing on the sly to good use."

As they walked to the door of Q's building, Q pulled his mobile out of his pocket and fiddled with the screen keyboard.

"I'm disarming the security system for seven minutes," he murmured briskly, returning the mobile to his pocket. "And disabling the cameras. So nobody at work will know you came home with me."

"Ashamed to be seen with me, Quartermaster?" Bond said jokingly, and Q puffed out his cheeks with exasperation.

Once inside the flat, he could see Bond looking about him with open curiosity. He had teased Q, in the recent past, of living in a world of gadgetry and the trappings of cyber-espionage, and, in spite of Q's repeated denials, had probably expected a space filled with screens, terminals, and electronic clobber. Actually, the only computers to be seen were a sleek desktop model in the living room and a laptop on the kitchen counter. (Q admitted that he had another laptop in the bedroom, a tablet in the drawer of his nightstand, and three heavily augmented mobile phones, but that was all.) The building was run-of-the-mill modern, and the rooms had clean, spare lines, but Q's furnishings were neither IKEA-style high-tech nor the chrome, glass, and clear plastic one might expect from such surroundings. Rather, they were simple and well put together: a low, white sofa and a half-moon shaped wooden table in the living room, a long, well-scrubbed farm table in the little dining room, and framed photographs, along with numerous books, on shelves. The place was clean and even tidy, except for a monumental mess of papers and scribblings on the dining table, which Q swept impatiently into a satchel.

One of the framed photos was of the view from the rooftop of MI6.

"Did you take these, Q?"

"I did," Q replied, half defensive, half embarrassed. "Um. I was testing one of our new wide-angle lenses—the one that's practically the size of a pinhead. It works quite well."

Bond lifted another from the nearest shelf and squinted at it.

"Cats," he said in an unreadable voice, looking from the black and white image to his silent Quartermaster. "Of course."

"I used to have cats," Q said in explanation.** "I can't keep any now, not with my working hours. Drink?"

"What about dinner, then?"

"After all that food at the party?"

"That," said Bond emphatically, "was not food. It was something to line the stomach before drinking to excess. I'm thinking about real food. Shall we go out?"

"No," said Q, just as emphatically, and in short order produced various dishes from his refrigerator and another from his timer-controlled oven. Twenty minutes later, they were seated in his small dining room, eating a perfectly roasted chicken with crisply roasted vegetables, and a fruit salad, and Q mumbled that there was a strawberry shortcake as well.

"You made all of this yourself, then?"

"Me? No, hardly. That is, I'm only responsible for the chicken and veg. My neighbor—she's grandmother to Stella in Accounting—made the fruit salad, and the cake was supplied by Eve. She wanted to be certain I'd, er, have something highly caloric for the holidays. If I had made it, it would be burnt to a crisp."

Bond gave his habitual sardonic smile, and reached for the wine bottle. It occurred to Q that 007 was looking a bit more grim than usual; his strong features might have been carved from granite, and his blue eyes were like slate. Holidays associated with happy family gatherings could hardly serve to lighten Bond's spirits, Q mused, as he went in search of a bottle of brandy. Hardly surprising if he turned to drink for warmth on such occasions. Well, Q was not going to attempt to fuss over him, or offer false cheer, because he knew, instinctively, that 007 would not appreciate it in the least.

Instead, he offered brandy and a seat on the sofa, in front of his fireplace—a rectangular opening in the wall with a shelf-like mantelpiece above it—and lit a fire. In his own experience, nothing was more soothing than a fire in a fireplace, accompanied by a good, strong drink and a heap of comfortable cushions at one's back. After a half hour or so of companionable silence, Bond's eyelids began to flicker, and he stood up and stretched. Q took the hint and led him to the bedroom, with its small adjoining bathroom, handed him a towel and a spare toothbrush, and left him on his own while he himself went back to the kitchen to deal with the detritus of their Christmas Eve meal. When he returned, perhaps twenty minutes later, Bond was in bed, under the duvet, one arm bent beneath his head and his face pressed against the crook of his elbow, asleep. His shirt had been shaken out and neatly draped over a chair back, his gold cufflinks were on the nightstand, but the rest of his clothing lay on the blue cotton Moroccan rug that was one of the only ornamental objects in the room.

Q smiled; he could feel his expression softening into a tenderness he had never let 007 see. Vulnerable was hardly a word one associated with James Bond, yet the man looked oddly vulnerable at the moment, body at ease, usually tight-lipped mouth relaxed, the fingers of one out-flung hand curled slightly upward. Q switched off the light and undressed in the dark; holding his breath, he slid into the bed as stealthily as he was able, not making a sound. Bond lay still, seemingly deep asleep, but as Q turned on his side, one of Bond's arms snaked lightly round his waist and held him. Q let out his breath and felt Bond slide into place behind him, curling them into spoons; he drifted off with the warmth of Bond's breath stirring his curls, and the heat of his body against his back.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"You do know how to keep a man well fed," Bond said somewhere around three in the morning. They had slept for perhaps two hours, and Q had wakened to the brush of 007's erection against his hip. Turning drowsily, he had closed his fingers round it, but Bond wrapped his own hands round both of their cocks, and Q's hand fell away, to clench tightly in the bedclothes as Bond worked them smoothly, doing some truly amazing things with one of his thumbs, which was sliding over the two heads, slick and teasing. Q bit his lip and made a sound between a gasp and a groan as he came; they spilled over Bond's hands at almost the same moment, and it had taken Q several minutes to regain his senses and hunt among the bedclothes for something to wipe them both dry with. Now—some twenty minutes later—they were sitting at the counter in his kitchen, eating the re-heated and still tasty remains of a takeaway order of fish and chips Q had found in his refrigerator.

"Does sex always make you this ravenous?" Q asked, picking absently at his portion.

"No," Bond replied, looking up from his plate. "Only sex with you."

Q gave a snort of utter disbelief.

"You should learn how to accept a compliment, Q."

Q rolled his eyes and watched as Bond methodically demolished a goodly chunk of fried cod. He was wearing the largest of Q's tee-shirts, which was still far too tight, and Q's eyes fastened on a long, pale scar down the outside of one of his forearms.

"What's that one from?"

"Skiing accident," Bond said, helping himself to chips.

"Really?" said Q, surprised. "You mean it wasn't work-related?"

"I got it coming down the side of a mountain," Bond mumbled over a mouthful of food.

"Off-piste, no doubt," Q said dryly. "Where? In Switzerland?"

"I was skiing in Aspen," Bond replied. "Not as posh as St. Moritz, but it has its virtues. Incredible scenery. Excellent trout fishing."

"I wouldn't know," said Q, who had never been anywhere near either St. Moritz or the Rocky Mountains. "Pity you had no time to ski in Austria. When you went to Salzburg, to pick up Albert Doinel."

"It all went so quickly," Bond murmured, standing up and carrying his empty plate to the sink. "Especially as Doinel came along as meekly as a little lamb."

"Speaking of Doinel, did you know that they're bringing him in for questioning again?"

" _Why_? Didn't they get whatever it was he was willing to tell? Prison is where he belongs, not traipsing through the halls of MI6."

Q shrugged. "He claims there's something important he didn't tell us before."

Bond let out his breath in an exasperated sigh. "I don't believe a word. He's just looking for attention. Didn't Chinese law enforcement want him in custody? I think we should simply hand him over."

"Fat chance," said Q, skeptically, and Bond chuckled.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Christmas morning was grey and chilly, but by the time Q got out of bed, the clouds were thinning and it was beginning to look as though the sun might put in an appearance after all. Bond was already awake, and muttering unintelligible imprecations at Q's coffee-machine; when Q emerged from the bedroom, rubbing his eyes, hair sticking out from his head in all directions like a Japanese animé character's, Bond announced that he wanted to go for a run.

Q shook his head and sighed, but obligingly disabled the security camera just outside the door to his flat, where it was disguised as a light fixture and programmed to feed images directly to MI6. By the time Bond returned, panting a little, his running gear damp with sweat, Q had set the kitchen counter with covered dishes of eggs, sausages, and toast, bowls of bitter-orange marmalade, raisins, and butter, and a carafe of coffee. As Bond entered the room, he was busy at his juicer, releasing fresh pear juice into tall glasses.

"I don't do this sort of thing on a regular basis," he said coolly, at the sight of Bond's quizzical look. "Coffee?"

"Thank you. Do I have time to shower?"

"The breakfast will keep. I'll shower with you."

"Perfect," said Bond, with a hint of a smirk; he pulled his sweatshirt over his head and followed Q to the bathroom, where he stood in the doorway and watched as Q fumbled off his pyjamas. Q could see Bond looking at him in the cold glare of the bathoom's fluorescent ceiling light, and could see himself reflected in the mirror, all fine lines, slim and straight and almost curveless, his pale skin smooth save for the dark hair at armpits and groin. Bond, trim and fit but much more substantial, stepped forward into the white-tiled room, and the light immediately brought into high relief the scars that marked him in numerous places. His eyes narrowed as he stared at Q; he looked almost cold with concentration, and it occurred to the Quartermaster that the men 007 had killed must have seen something very similar in Bond's face before they died.

He must have given a little involuntary shiver, because Bond came to him and put a hand on his shoulder.

"What is it, Q?"

Q shook his head, and opened the glass door to the shower stall, reaching inside to turn on the taps. He caught Bond running his eyes over the products on the shelf within: soap, shampoo, some sort of hair conditioner or de-tangler (why bother?), and a tube of—

"Hmm," said Bond in a ruminative tone.

Q had already stepped into the shower and was standing under the spray, head tipped back a little and water cascading down his body, when Bond joined him, shutting the door carefully, and then moving so close that they were chest to chest (Bond was just a bit taller), one hand sliding tantalisingly down his back. The bar of soap popped out of Q's hand like a slippery bullfrog, and went flying across the shower stall, landing with a wet splat and sliding across the tiles. Bond turned and bent to pick it up. This gesture offered Q a remarkable view of his backside, taut and sculpted above muscular thighs, and Q's breathing hitched a little. If he took one step closer, and then another, _deeper_ , step…

Bond turned his head, soap in hand, and must have seen Q looking, because, as he straightened up, he suddenly broke into his crooked grin and murmured, "You can, if you want to."

Q flushed to his hairline and then decided not to opt for pseudo-innocent denial. Of course he wanted to. "Are you sure?"

"I wouldn't say it if I wasn't."

Q took a shaky breath. "Bond, you've…done it before?"

"I have. Granted, it was years ago, but that shouldn't stop you."

Q gave an incredulous little smile, and then stopped smiling. "But. I. Might hurt you."

"I don't mind that."

Q gave a little laugh, faint and musical, that was nearly drowned out by the noise of the shower, and his green eyes—gone grey in the light that filtered through the shower stall—opened wider. But he reached for the tube on the shelf, released a generous amount of the contents onto his fingers, and gripped Bond's hip with the other hand as he did some preparatory work. Bond hissed a little but made no other sound, and Q's fingers were gentle and thorough, before he removed them and pushed himself in, not gently at all (because he sensed that Bond had no desire for gentleness at this point), but slowly enough not to cause too much pain. They both swayed slightly before Bond braced himself with his hands against the tiles, and Q, adjusting his own stance, established a careful, fluid rhythm that grew faster and then slowed down again. Q was so sensitized that any touch seemed to add to his pleasure: the brush of Bond's thighs against his, the hardness of his shoulder against Q's cheek, the steady spray of the shower. The sight of rivulets of water running down Bond's powerful back, then over and between his buttocks, excited him to near delirium. He pushed forward more forcefully, reaching round at the same time to work Bond's cock with one hand.

The hot water beat down on both of them, and Bond's cock was hot in Q's hand, and he was hot and tight inside. The muscles of his back were rock-hard against Q's front. Q came more quickly than he had planned, his open, panting mouth pressed against Bond's shoulder, as Bond threw back his head with a harsh groan, eyes squeezed shut, and exploded into Q's hand.

"Oh God, Bond," Q gasped as they both labored to slow their breathing.

" _James_."

"My knees are jelly," Q went on, ignoring Bond's single-word utterance. "I don't know that I can walk."

"Well, I'm not at all certain _I_ can, but I'm going to try, because I'm—"

"Starving," Q finished for him. "You're sadly predictable, Mr Bond."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"What's for Christmas dinner, then?" Bond asked as they both padded damply into the kitchen, towels slung round their waists, and confronted the breakfast dishes spread across the counter.

"You are unquestionably a creature of the senses," Q replied, a corner of his mouth quirking upward. "How can you contemplate dinner when you haven't had breakfast yet? No massive roast goose and flaming pudding, if that's what you're thinking. It's cassoulet with duck breast and duck _confit_ , and yes, I actually made it myself without incinerating the flat."

"Ah," said Bond wryly, but he looked suitably impressed as he poured a stream of coffee into two cups. Then he sat down on a bar stool, gave a small, surprised grunt, and stood up again, rather suddenly.

"As I said before," he murmured, looking slightly sheepish for the first time since Q had known him, "it's been a while, and I'd forgotten…"

"Oh—sorry," said Q, who was not sorry a bit. "If you'd rather not do that again, I—"

"Don't be an idiot," Bond replied, as his arm snapped out and he rumpled Q's hair, nearly dislodging his glasses. "Little leopard. Of course we can."

"Merry Christmas to you too," Q mumbled, and watched Bond's cocky, lopsided grin become even more infuriatingly smug.

* * *

 ***Lisbeth Salander, the hacker heroine from** _**The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo** _ **.**

****According to interviews, Mr Whishaw is a cat lover who once owned as many as 11 cats at once.**


	12. In Which Several Unexpected Things Happen

**Chapter 12: In Which Several Unexpected Things Occur**

"They're bringing Doinel in sometime next week," Tanner said flatly, a corner of his mouth twitching with mild consternation. "Like you, I don't see why. He can't possibly have anything to tell us he hasn't already revealed."

"Hmm," replied Bond absent mindedly, fishing in the bowl of mints on Moneypenny's desk. "I'm in agreement there. Why next week?"

"He's been ill; he's in the prison infirmary," Tanner said, giving the neon-colored candies a dubious look. "He claims it's because of the terrible prison food."

Both men turned their heads at the brisk tapping of Moneypenny's elegant heels as she entered the room, her arms piled with grey folders.

"Year-end reports from all the branches," she said in explanation, depositing the pile on her desk with a thump. "And they're all complaining that they need more funding."

"They do that every year," Tanner replied blandly. "I suppose the bills are highest for Q Branch, as usual?"

"They managed to keep expenditures within reason," Moneypenny said approvingly. "That is, until quite recently. There's been a sudden, um, upswing in the production of surveillance equipment and augmented sidearms for the Double O division." She gave Bond a friendly but definitely insinuating stare.

"Ah," said Tanner, unflappable as always. "Bond. You _do_ have a habit of losing your sidearm in the oddest of circumstances. They get eaten by lizards and—"

"Might I have a word, Miss Moneypenny?" Mallory's voice came through loud and clear on the intercom, and Moneypenny jumped.

"If you'll excuse me, gentlemen," she murmured, and disappeared behind the padded door to M's office.

Bond and Tanner eyed the door, and then each other, in silence for a moment.

"How are things going with—" Bond cocked his head in the direction of the office. Tanner's loyalty and devotion to the previous M had been unquestionable, and Bond often wondered how it felt to be Chief of Staff to somebody so different. Not that he had any objections to Mallory, who was a sharp and efficient M, but all the same…

He knew Tanner well enough to know that Tanner would say nothing indiscrete. "He's alright," Tanner said now, abruptly, and Bond nodded.

"He raked 008 over the coals yesterday," Tanner added in a low voice. Although he was rarely given to negative gossip with the field agents, he and Bond shared a moderate dislike of the agent in question. "For unprofessional behavior. I, er, suspect you've heard. For attempting to cajole that youngster, Clyde Harris in Medical, not to mention some of the ladies, into, uh…"

"Precisely," said Bond, relieved that 008's pursuit of Q had not been mentioned.

"And one of the lads from the Office of Accounts, as well," Tanner added. "Granted, he's a formidable weapons expert, and a bloody fighting machine. If it weren't for that…" His voice trailed away.

"Eve says he'll shag almost anything that moves," Bond murmured. "It isn't as if he was trying to, er, devote himself to one person exclusively."

"M doesn't approve of either," Tanner said with a half-smile. "Either playing the field or establishing a relationship. With fellow employees, that is."

"It's not forbidden," Bond said calmly.

"But it's not _approved of_ ," Tanner replied, a little uneasily. He cast a flickering glance at Bond, and then looked away. "It's never really been approved of. Oh, they turn a blind eye if a field agent occasionally takes one of the girls out for a spin—as long as it's casual and doesn't mean anything to either party, and as long as both parties are discrete. There's the general feeling that field agents—the Double Os in particular—are entitled to a bit of, um, because of their…"

"Because of their high mortality rate," said Bond with a touch of amusement. "Don't I know it."

"Relationships are another matter, of course."

"Naturally," said Bond, shrugging. "They present enemies with excellent threat material. Or hostage material. They could compromise the safety of operatives. There are security issues to consider. Not to mention the messiness that follows the average break-up. Nobody wants _that_ in the workplace. Especially," he added jokingly, "if the parties involved are skilled in the use of deadly force."

Tanner smiled obligingly, but his brow was creased with what Bond sensed was a kind of awkward concern.

"I don't suppose Mallory would be outraged," Bond said casually, studying the small vase of flowers on Moneypenny's desk, "if a field operative were to—with discretion, naturally—establish an understanding of sorts with a fellow employee."

Tanner coughed and shuffled a handful of papers **.** "It depends," he said uncomfortably, "on which employee we're talking about."

Moneypenny chose this moment to emerge from M's office, rolling her eyes with exasperation.

" _Somebody's_ in a testy mood this morning," she muttered under her breath as she passed them. "You can go in now, 007. He needs to talk to you about Romania."

"Romania?" said Bond, raising his eyes to the ceiling. " _Now?_ Bloody hell."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Romania," Bond growled in tones of resignation. "The day after tomorrow."

"I hear it's beautiful," Q murmured. "Parts of the southern Carpathians. A friend told me the views from the DN7C are spectacular."

"I won't be driving on the DN7C," Bond retorted. "I'll be in Bucharest. Thank God it'll be a short visit."

"Lots of lovely sights in Bucharest as well, I understand," Q began, but Bond promptly shut him up.

They were sitting naked on the edge of Bond's bed—that is, Bond was sitting on the edge of his bed and Q was in his lap, his ankles crossed behind Bond's back. Now Q's head fell back, so that Bond could mouth along his throat and jaw, one hand twisted into Q's inky hair, the fingertips of the other trailing down that silken stomach. Q's eyes were half-closed above those high cheekbones, and his pretty, crimson mouth was swollen and moist from kissing…and nibbling, and sucking.

The sight added to Bond's ardour, and he abruptly shifted further up onto the bed before rolling them over, so that Q was beneath him. He heard the delicate, now familiar sigh, as he settled his weight on top of the thin, pliant body and slid one hand beneath his hips, lifting him into position. As always, he was struck by how fragile the young man felt in his arms, but there was lean muscle there, as well, and a surprising strength in those slender limbs. As he pushed forward, pushed into him, he was gentle, because when he was too precipitous, too hurried, it sometimes made Q flinch just a little until his body adjusted to the intrusion. He eased in and back gradually until he felt Q's hips surge upward as he locked his ankles behind Bond's back once again, and knew that it was safe, now, to begin moving faster.

"I'm doing it to you, next time," Q whispered as they lay spent and half-asleep a while later. "I like it when the great 007 makes animal noises in my ear."

"Animal noi—?" Bond shook with silent laughter for a moment, and cuffed Q very lightly over the head. "Right. You'll get your turn, cub. But not, I think, until after I come back. I've a round trip flight to Bucharest to face, and even in first class those airline seats aren't as comfortable as I'd like."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The mission to Bucharest took four days only, and involved only one target and no seductions. The target, a longtime extortionist who warehoused information from all corners of the globe, was also a confirmed kidnapper-rapist, something that made it easy for Bond to assassinate him with a clear conscience. Of course, it wasn't an easy, simple matter. It almost never was.

"Bloody hell," Bond growled as a bullet whined past his jaw.

"Pay attention, 007," snapped Q, in his ear, his fluid tenor voice a little more strained than usual with anxiety.

"The exact words your predecessor always used," Bond replied with aplomb as he slid over a stairwell banister and dropped into the dimness below.

"I said, take the exit to your left," Q said tersely. "Why do you _never_ listen?"

"I always listen, little leopard."

"Bond," said Q in a pained voice. The communication link had been broadcast on speaker to the entire computer lab, and heads were turning and eyes widening as his minions queried silently, _What was that he said?_

"No worries," Bond's voice sounded remarkably calm, in spite of his rapid breathing. "Target down, pursuit neutralized. I should be home by tomorrow noon. Earlier, if I can get a flight."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Bond was as good as his word. He took a night flight back to London, slept soundly all the way, and strolled into MI6 as cool as you please, shortly before employees began queuing for lunch in the staff canteen.

On his way up to Mallory's inner sanctum, he encountered Moneypenny in the hallway. She was yawning visibly, and there were dark circles under her eyes.

"No comments on my appearance, please," she snapped as Bond approached her. "We stayed late, last night; there was a panic on in America. A simultaneous bomb scare in Washington, D.C., and Tokyo. It turned out to be false, but it shook everybody up. There's a fellow from their Homeland Security Office coming here for an emergency meeting tonight."

"A pity," said Bond, attempting to sound sympathetic. "Another late evening for you."

"Not just for me," Moneypenny replied in a disgruntled voice. "Tanner, of course. The American from Homeland Security. Some gentleman named Noguchi, from the Japanese Secret Service. And Q."

"Really," said Bond in a commiserating voice. "At what time?"

"Midnight," Moneypenny said dolefully. "I hate it when things like this happen."

"Why midnight?"

"Noguchi San is flying over as we speak, and he has to go back tomorrow. He said he would sleep on the flight, and he'll have less jet lag if we do this immediately. I was just on my way to Q Branch; I'll need to brief Q about the meeting."

"I'll come with you," Bond said companionably. "I need to return my tech."

"Broken to bits?" she murmured, yawning and rubbing her eyes, miraculously managing to avoid ruining her carefully applied mascara.

"Absolutely intact."

"How unexpected. Q will be pleased."

They made their way down to the cavernous tunnels and chambers of the former bunker, and arrived at the brightly lit, glassed-in computer lab, where the Q Branch staff could usually be seen pounding on their keyboards or studying their monitors with eagle eyes. What they found, however, was a room full of minions surreptitiously staring at their boss, who appeared to be deep in an animated conversation with M's Chief of Staff.

"You really _must_ see this," Moneypenny whispered to Bond as they paused on the threshhold of Q's domaine. "It seems they do it often. Priceless, aren't they?"

"I've forgotten my next line," Q was saying glumly, rubbing his eyes as vigorously as Moneypenny. "Sorry."

It was Tanner's day to visit Q Branch for a progress report, and, having dispensed with business quite rapidly, he and Q had launched into their usual Shakespearean routine—in this instance, the fencing contest from the last act of _Hamlet_. The only problem was that they were both exhausted—Q having stayed at work until past ten the previous night, and Tanner having stayed at least as late, due to word about the false bomb scare. Consequently, they both kept flubbing their lines, with Q—who was playing Hamlet—completely forgetting several of his. They had finally taken to waving floppy bits of BX cable at one another in lieu of swords, to the mystification of the Q Branch minions. Bond and Moneypenny watched unobtrusively as the two spouted Elizabethan dialogue at one another.*

If the Q Branch minions were finding this behavior extremely bizarre, it was also clear that they had seen it before.

"What are they doing this time?" hissed Patil to the room in general. "I mean, really… _what_ are they doing?"

"What they almost always do when Tanner comes down here," Michaels replied in a tired voice. "Shakespeare."

" _Another hit, what say you?_ " said Q, and then squawked as Tanner's cable thwacked his midsection.

"What a bore," groaned Albery, who had little interest in the literary arts. "Look at them…like a pair of primary school kids." Tanner had just sent Q's piece of cable flying into the wall, where it barely missed hitting one of the screens.

"Good job, Laertes," Q said, holding up both hands in surrender. "And I can't recall the next lines anyway. You win."

"How can I win when I'm meant to be dying from poison?" Tanner retorted. "Oh well. Now where did I put those bloody reports?"

"If you'll pardon me, _Laertes_ ," drawled Moneypenny from the door, "you're wanted upstairs. And 007 is back, and needs to report to M. Immediately"

"Oh," said Tanner, with a start. He glared sheepishly at his piece of BX cable and dropped it to the top of the nearest desk. "Excellent." He caught sight of Bond standing just behind Moneypenny, looked from him to Q's impassive face, and then scooped up his reports. "It's good to see you're unscathed, 007."

"Your tech, Quartermaster," Bond said, placing his earpiece, his Walther (he kept a second one at home), his watch, and a new mobile phone that responded to his thumbprint alone, on Q's workstation. "Ingenious, the way you've reworked my mobile. You do have clever hands, prince of Denmark." He spoke coolly, not smirking as he might have done if the others hadn't been present, but could see Q was making a concerted effort not to scowl at the secret innuendo.

"Thanks for the updates," Q said to Tanner, keeping his expression neutral. Bond's eyes met his for a split second, and Bond lowered one eyelid in an infinitesimal wink. "And for those charts from Defense Intelligence. Welcome back, 007. It's good to know you're still amongst us in the land of the living."

"Just barely, thanks," Bond replied as he made a neat about-face and followed Moneypenny's tapping heels, with a poker-faced Tanner bringing up the rear.

"Why are they calling him Lay…Lar…whatever?" Bond heard Albery chirp as they filed through the door. "I thought Tanner's name was Bill."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Bond supposed he was selfish. He _knew_ he was being selfish, a totally selfish prick, but, in spite of feeling the need for several more hours of sleep, he was galvanized with nervous energy. The rush of adrenaline and exhilaration, mixed with unresolved tension that always kicked in after a successful mission had hit him harder than usual this time, and _bloody hell_ , but he was hungry for release. And he wanted it to be with Q.

After his brief conference with M he backtracked to the bunker, was told by Manuelli that her boss was doing some strength training in the gym, and headed in that direction. Q's workouts usually ran for only a half hour or so; he would then shower and return to his post in the computer lab. Bond knew the Quartermaster's routine so well by now that when Q emerged from the shower, he came face to face with 007, standing, fully dressed, by the lockers.

"Oh," said Q in astonishment, automatically clutching his towel. "What are you doing here?"

Bond was suddenly tempted to hook a finger in that towel and pull it away from Q's thin waist, but restrained himself. They had never laid so much as a finger on one another at work, and besides, it was always possible that somebody else might walk in. "Are you going home before your meeting with M and the others?"

"Er, yes," Q stammered, his eyes following Bond's. "I was planning to."

"Good," replied Bond coolly. "I'm coming with you."

"But—" Q stared at Bond with a combination of confusion and puzzlement. "The _meeting_. I have to be back here. At midnight."

"Judging from the state I'm in at the moment," Bond murmured. "What I have in mind won't take very long."

"Is that so?" said Q sharply, biting the inside of his cheek—Bond wasn't certain whether this was to suppress a furious retort or the desire to laugh out loud. "In other words, you need to relieve a certain need, and I happen to be a conveniently situated body."

"I wouldn't put it quite that way. But I _do_ have a certain need, and you happen to be the only body I would like to relieve it with."

"Ha ha," Q retorted, a little peevishly, but Bond caught a glint of humour in the green eyes beneath which shadows of fatigue had started to bloom.

The door to the hallway opened, and a disheveled-looking 008, in sweat-stained exercise clothing, stepped through it. His eyes widened with prurient interest at the sight of Q in his towel, but a second later they also registered the presence of 007, leaning casually against one of the lockers.

"Not interrupting anything, am I?" he said, leering a little, and Bond could almost feel Q clenching his teeth.

Q opened his mouth to say something, but Bond interrupted him smoothly.

"I was merely offering to show our young Quartermaster one or two defensive moves," he said dryly as he pushed off the locker door and straightened his cuffs. "The sort of thing that could be useful…in the unlikely event that he needs to fend off the attentions of a larger, stronger individual."

008 made a sound halfway between a snarl and a derisive snort as he vanished between the row of lockers. Bond waited until he heard the shower running before turning to the door.

"I'll bring the car round at six," he said quietly, so as not to be audible to 008. "We can have some dinner first."

"It had better be a good one," Q mumbled, rolling his eyes.

"Oh, it will be."

"I meant the dinner!" Q shouted after him, glaring, and Bond smiled but made no reply.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"I'm sorry that was so quick," Bond breathed, a little guiltily. "I didn't mean for it to be…it's just…I was just…" And then he stopped, because he was not in any way accustomed to apologizing for a less than stellar performance.

"Bond," said Q, panting but looking surprised, because this was probably the last thing he had expected 007 to say. "What did you expect? You must be exhausted. And it was good. There's no reason to apologize like an idiot. Ow," he added, as Bond drew back and out. "What we both need is some sleep, and I'm not going to get any."

"Yes you are. You can get a couple of hours in. I'll wake you."

"You are…entirely too much," Q said with bleary incredulity. "You couldn't wait twenty-four hours?"

"I didn't hear you complaining a moment ago."

"Such a conceited bastard," Q murmured resignedly, but without real ire. "I have a meeting _at midnight_."

"I'll wake you," Bond said again, reassuringly, and ignored Q's huff of exasperation as he shifted his position and reached out to switch off the bedside lamp.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

As things turned out, it was just as well that Bond had given in to impulse and almost bullied Q into that bout of rapid-fire sex, because duty kept him occupied for the next two weeks, with not a moment to spare for even the quickest of shags.

With the shortest of notice, M sent him to Myanmar, in the company of 002, for some old fashioned spying; no sooner was he back in London than he was sent, alone, to Marseilles.

"It's a renegade from the Unione Corse," said M irritably, referring to the Corsican version of the Mafia. "He's broken away from one of the families, and gone into the buying and selling of state secrets, like every other Tom, Dick, and Harry. Heroin trafficking wasn't good enough for him, I suppose."

Bond's contact in Marseilles was a lovely informant by the name of Françoise Venturi, and she proved more than skillful in helping him to net the Corsican renegade, catching him as he was preparing to drug, or possibly torture, a hapless government official in order to obtain information. Once the smoke had cleared and the renegade was dispatched to his final resting place, Mlle Venturi decided to celebrate with a festive dinner, a bottle of the best champagne, and James Bond, in more or less that order.

Bond had thoughtfully left his earpiece in his hotel room, before repairing to Françoise's, but of course he was aware that Q would know exactly what he was doing. Not that he had much appetite for it. But his informant appeared to expect it, as part of her payment for services rendered, and as guarantee of her future cooperation.

"I hope Mallory doesn't have anything for me at the moment," he said to Q as he returned tech, most of which was still in one piece. "I could use a rest."

Q gave him a genuine smile. "I'll bet," he said, without rancour, and Bond knew a moment of relief. At least his Quartermaster knew what the Double Os were often called upon to do, and had no difficulty in dealing with the mental images.

"Dinner Friday?" he murmured, before leaving Q Branch for his debriefing with Mallory.

"Fine," replied Q, fiddling with the innards of Bond's Omega Seamaster. "I'll fill you in on what you missed. It's been rather exciting around here. They brought that Albert Doinel in for questioning, and he caused quite a stir."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Friday dinner was eaten, not at a restaurant, but in Q's flat, and consisted of an excellent bouillabaisse that the Quartermaster prepared himself.

"In honor of your trip to Marseilles," he announced with a faintly sardonic curl of his lips. "I've never made one before, but it stood to reason that if I could draw up the specs for miniature, _pen-sized_ heat-seeking missiles, I could follow a simple recipe."

"Not so simple," Bond said with appreciation as the first mouthful went down. "God, this is good." And he watched Q flush with pleasure as he poured the wine.

After cheese and grapes and more wine, they repaired to Q's living room, where Q collapsed on the sofa and Bond went to pour them both drinks.

"Now," he said, sitting down with a cold glass in either hand. "You can tell me all about Albert Doinel." He extended the whisky and water, and watched Q curl his fingers round the frosted glass. Q's hands were long and slender, elegant but unquestionably masculine, with boyish knuckles and square-tipped fingers. "What did he do at HQ, then? Burst into remorseful tears? Brutalize his interrogator?"

"He was amazingly polite, from what I've been told," Q replied. "He even complemented _you_ , for not having brutalized _him_ when you went to collect him in Salzburg. Then he fainted and had to be taken to Medical."

"No," said Bond flatly, frowning with disbelief. "He was faking it. He's hiding something. Or planning something. Manipulative bastard. Perhaps I _should_ have brutalized him in Salzburg. Well, Q. You drank that down in record time. Not trying to get me drunk, are you?"

"Is that what you think?" Q's eyes narrowed in that familiar way Bond had come to think of as his suspicious cat look. "Are you going to brutalize _me_ now?"

Bond threw back his head and roared with laughter, as Q eyed him somberly over the rim of his empty glass. He swiped absently at his hair—Bond had grown accustomed to this signature gesture—as his guest stood up and went to refresh their drinks.

When he returned to the sofa Q peered suspiciously at the contents of his glass, which looked very dark.

"Bond. Are you trying to get _me_ drunk?"

"No, not really."

"I can't see why. You know you can have me when you want me, _hic_. I'm so bloody acqui…ac…acquiescent it's ridiculous. Should be ashamed of myself."

Q had flung himself bonelessly onto the sofa cushions, and Bond regarded him thoughtfully. His young Quartermaster gazed back at him with eyes that were slightly glazed, a subtly shifting green beneath dark lashes; his lips and cheeks were flushed and he had dragged a hand through his hair so that it swept like dark, layered feathers across his brow. He looked beautiful, frail, and as breakable as glass, and Bond felt a sudden wave of possessiveness sweep over him, taking him by surprise, but only for a moment.

Bond was not a ditherer, and he did not dither now. It was his habit, as well as a natural tendency, not to mention professional practice, to make decisions coldly and with speed. He stared hard at Q and made up his mind within the time it took to pour himself another drink. He wanted to keep this remarkable young man in his life. He wanted to go on sleeping with him, and he wanted his companionship, odd as that might seem when one considered the impersonal quality of nearly all the amours of his past. For all of Q's prickliness, Bond found him easy to be with; they could talk to one another on almost any subject without reserve, even if their conversations occasionally dissolved into snark. (Q's antecedents, his real name, and Bond's own past, were the only topics that remained taboo.) And who would have thought that fucking his Quartermaster could be so addictive? Bond set his jaw, cursing inwardly, and faced the incongruous fact that he was thinking about a genuine _relationship_ …the godawful R word he had managed to avoid for most of his adult life. He shoved to the back of his mind the memories of two would-be relationships that had come to a very sad, bad end.**

"Oh shit," said Q, who had spilled half of his drink onto the floor.

"Are you alright, Q?"

"There are two of you," Q said fuzzily, pointing in Bond's direction. And then he _giggled_ , a light, stuttering sound Bond had never heard from him before, and set his half-empty glass on the edge of the table with painstaking precision.

"Careful, little leopard," Bond said gently, and moved the glass away from the edge. Oddly enough, he had been utterly enthralled by that giggle. "I think we had better go to bed."

"Right," Q said adamantly, after a pause. "Teeth first, though." He made vague tooth brushing gestures with one hand as he held the other arm out for balance. Bond watched him make his way to the bathroom, just slightly wobbly on his feet, and wondered whether it would be unethical to coax his inebriated Quartermaster into having sex. He had the feeling that if the roles were reversed, Q would do the honorable thing and wait until Bond was sober.

Being honorable had its drawbacks, and, anyway, Q wasn't all _that_ drunk.

* * *

*** Ben Whishaw made his Old Vic debut in 2004, age 24, as Hamlet under Trevor Nunn's direction. In that production, Laertes was played by Rory Kinnear (Tanner).**

**** Vesper, in "Casino Royale", and Tracy, in "On Her Majesty's Secret Service."**

**Comments, or encouragement of any sort, are very, very welcome.**


	13. Interesting Revelations

**Chapter 13: Interesting Revelations**

When Q slowly came to consciousness next morning, he realized that yes, he had drunk too much the night before, and that he had rather garbled memories of what had occurred _after_ having drunk too much.

His mouth felt as dry as sawdust, and it was a moment before his vision focused; naturally, the first thing he saw when he rubbed his eyes and squinted was the back of Bond's head, the short, tufted straw-colored hair and one of those outrageous ears.

He had vague and horrifying memories of raking his fingers through that pale hair while telling Bond he was beautiful, and calling him James, and moaning _yes, yes, oh yes_ , and _please_ , and _ohgodohgod, don't stop_ , as they rolled over and over in the bed. Now he lay still, tense with embarrassment and angry with himself for having given away so much. Damn Bond! Damn him for being such a fucking irresistible bastard, and for getting Q so drunk that he had gone and made a total fool of himself.

"What?" said Bond, sleepily, his back still to Q, and Q realized—more horror—that he must have spoken out loud.

"I said, I really need some coffee," Q mumbled, glad that Bond's back was turned because he was truly terrible when it came to telling a lie of any sort. "Or tea. Something. _Oh_." He put his hand to his throbbing head and slumped back onto the pillows, squirming to get comfortable.

Bond turned to face him, then propped himself on his elbow and put his free hand on Q's shoulder.

"Take deep breaths and stop thrashing about," he said calmly. "I'll fetch you some ibuprofen tablets."

"I don't suppose you're hung over?" Q said hopefully. If Bond had been well and truly inebriated, perhaps he didn't remember a thing.

"Only partially," Bond replied, narrowing his eyes against the morning sun. "One part of me doesn't appear to be hung over in the slightest."

"Er," said Q in a muffled voice, trying to come to terms with the likelihood that 007's memory was fearfully intact. "Make that go down, will you? It's distracting, and I don't think I'm in any condition…"

"You could give me a hand, then," Bond suggested, yawning, and Q was unable to suppress a feeble croak of laughter.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Twenty minutes later, Q was beginning to feel the soothing results of two hastily-downed analgesic tablets, and Bond was recovering from a manually-induced but eminently satisfying orgasm (Q had done most of the hand work). He lay sprawled across Q's sheets in a state of loose-limbed euphoria, and Q lay beside him, on his side so that he could watch the play of sunlight on the muscles of chest and throat, and on the fair hair that was really too short to be properly tousled.

Bond snapped back into alertness fairly rapidly, as became a good field agent, and stretched, yawning hugely.

"Shall I return the favor, little leopard?"

"Um, I don't think so…that is, not now. It isn't that I wouldn't like it, it's just that my head still feels like it's stuffed with cotton wool."

"But you do like it? I haven't been able to figure out which way you like it best."

"Oh, well, I," Q said, a little startled, eyes rolling toward the high, white-painted ceiling. "It's hardly a matter of the gravest importance."

"No? Indulge me; I'm curious." Bond's hand came to rest lightly on his waist.

"Wh—what? I don't think I've _talked_ about these things since I was at uni."

"What did you like," Bond persisted, eyebrows raised. "When you were at uni, then."

"Oh…I don't know…the usual, um, I suppose."

"Well? No need to be shy about it with me." Bond was smiling slightly, and his keen blue stare was unusually gentle. "Top or bottom? Your preference, I mean."

Q swallowed. "Both. Either."

"Any bondage? No pun intended."

Q flushed crimson. "Um. Maybe. A little."

Actually, the thought of Bond tying him up and then having his way made Q shiver with excitement. Or, perhaps better yet, tying _Bond_ up, and then going at him.

"Just doing basic research," Bond said casually, letting one fingertip run the length of Q's slender, downy nape. "As I would do before any mission. Or long-term project."

Long-term. Q's heart felt as though it was about to beat its way through his ribcage. "I don't know that I like being thought of as a mission, 007. Or a project."

Bond's lopsided grin acknowledged the awkwardness of the statement. "Poor choice of words, that. But I _am_ thinking…well, long-term. Are you?"

" _You_ …er, long-term?"

Bond shrugged. "Granted I may not live long enough to call anything long-term. But before I'm six feet under, or, should I survive long enough to face retirement…before I'm _ignominiously hauled away for scrap_ , as you so eloquently stated it, I should like—how can I put this?—to have your company on a regular basis."

Q was staring at him, mouth slightly open, and for a moment he looked so utterly, uncharacteristically gormless that Bond exploded into dry chuckles.

"Why so surprised, Q?"

Why? Because Q had never thought Bond might be interested in more than a casual fling with a compliant colleague. Because, although he was confident of his own professional worth, he hardly regarded himself as the sort who could catch and hold the attention of an inveterate philanderer like James Bond. And because it could never work, in the long-term. Wouldn't work. No matter how much Q loved him, and fuck-all, but he did love him.

After a moment, Q closed his mouth again, because he didn't want to look like a _total idiot_ , but his mind was racing as he mentally flew through every file on 007 he'd ever read. Bond _did not_ do relationships. He _did not_ do long-term. His two attempts at commitment had ended in tragedy. Bond was the worst kind of cold-blooded sex machine. He was like Oz's Tin Woodman; he didn't have a heart. He was—

"I can almost see the wheels and cogs turning," Bond said, sounding amused. "Oh, I forgot, that's all passé; I can see the central processing unit doing a frantic search. Or is nano-technology replacing the traditional hard drive? It's alright, Q. You needn't answer now."

"The synapses in my brain have gone dead," Q said faintly. He clenched his hands so tightly that his nails bit into his palms, to hide his emotion. "Nothing computes. Do you think I might have some breakfast?"

Bond looked at the bedside clock and then back at Q. "It's past eleven, pup." He slid the fingers of one hand upward through Q's hair, from the back of his neck to the crown of his head. Several tendrils remained upright, like the beginnings of a Mohawk, and Q could see the corners of Bond's mouth quirking with a sternly suppressed smile. "Rather late for breakfast."

"I don't care."

"Would poached eggs and buttered toast do you for the moment?"

"Affirmative," said Q, still faintly. "Bond. Do you think we're still drunk?"

"No," replied Bond comfortably, half sitting up. "Not in the slightest. And it's _James_ , for pity's sake!"

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Because Q was obviously in no shape to prepare breakfast, he permitted Bond to rummage about in still-unfamiliar kitchen cupboards until he located what was needed. As 007 methodically set water to boil for the eggs and sliced bread for toast—Q had never expected him to display so much domestic compliance in another person's home—Q slunk off into the bathroom to have a look at himself in the mirror. What he saw was a lanky young person who, if his ears had been pointy and eyebrows slanted, would have been ripe for central casting as a Vulcan in the throes of Pon Farr.

"Ugh," he said to his wild-haired reflection, and splashed cold water on his face in an attempt to do something about his morning-after appearance.

When he reappeared in the kitchen, he looked more poised and wide awake, wearing a pair of skinny jeans and a plain grey tee shirt, hair moderately tamed and eyes less red-rimmed behind his dark-framed glasses. Somewhat to his relief, Bond made no further mention of preferred sex positions or long-term relationships; they lapsed, instead, into a casual conversation whose subject ambled from the lack of attention to relatively "small-time" criminal organizations like the Unione Corse to why in blazes Albert Doinel had fainted during his second interrogation at MI6.

"No doubt he'll claim he was mistreated," Bond murmured, spreading his toast with jam. "It was all a plea for sympathy."

"You mean, he'll claim he was tortured," replied Q, blinking at the invigorating strength of the coffee 007 had set before him. "That makes no sense, does it? I mean, he _asked_ to come in and talk to MI6 a second time."

"And I'll wager he didn't give us any new information, either," Bond said, reaching for more toast. "He simply enjoys playing games with us. With anyone. That's why he gave himself up in the first place. I think he was bored with being reduced to the status of a common criminal, on the run from local police in some Chinese municipality."

Q doubted that Bond had ever been able to indulge in this sort of conversation—shop talk, basically—with any of his previous bedmates, and perhaps that was why he was looking so contented and relaxed as he poured himself a second cup of coffee. In spite of his womanizing reputation, Bond was regarded by most of the staff of MI6 as a cold fish, an icy, almost humourless individual, and the few employees who knew him better—Tanner and Moneypenny, for example—were not about to reveal to their awed co-workers that 007 was an actual human being. Well, Q had seen him smile, had seen him laugh, and he guessed that beneath the cool surface Bond's emotions ran deep, but the very notion that he might be capable of settling into an arrangement resembling monogamy was completely mind-boggling.

Best not to dwell on the matter now.

"You can ask Tanner about Doinel's little visit," Q said, valiantly postponing any musings on Bond's earlier reference to "long term." He stood up, registered the fact that his head no longer felt like an over-used punching bag, and went to the refrigerator to hunt for the raspberries and cream he had purchased the day before.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The following Monday, late in the afternoon, Q studied the prototype of a modified Walther PPK and ran a sharp eye over the grip before handing it over to 007. He, Bond, and Tanner—who was taking a well-earned break from his dutiful attendance on M—were standing by one of the worktables in Laboratory Two, separated from the computer lab by its thick, but completely transparent, glass wall. Q watched as Bond eyed the weapon appreciatively before lifting it and weighing it in his hand. It was an elegant piece of equipment, a 9 milimeter short, like all the previous ones Q had given him, seven shots in the magazine, a dull metallic shine to every part of it but the grip plates. And it was blessedly light-weight.

"Don't forget," Q said briskly, "it's coded to your palmprint, as usual. No one else can fire it. I've a second model, look. You can take it home with you, although I haven't finished working on it. There are some things I want to add, but it's functional, and it's been palmprint coded as well."

"As I would expect from you." Bond shifted the Walther to his left hand, holding it loosely, feeling the perfect balance.

"Your older gun's fine, but this one's got some refinements. A laser rangefinder similar to the ones used for those new smart rifles. You pull the trigger, and the gun decides when to fire…taking distance, aim, wind conditions, and hand steadiness into account."

Tanner grimaced. "Clever," he murmured. "It practically does the work for you. What will your division come up with next, do you think?"

"I've heard they're working on miniature surveillance cameras that fly independently, like birds or tiny gliders," Bond commented mildly. "Isn't that so, Q?

Q looked down his insouciant nose at both men and remained silent.

There was a sharp rapping at the door, and all three turned as Moneypenny pushed it open and stepped into the room.

"May I join you, or is this an all-male party?"

Q smiled a little, but both Bond and Tanner snorted.

Sighing, Moneypenny dropped into Lab Two's solitary chair. "Mallory is not in the best of moods," she said wryly, pressing her fingertips to her temples. "This Doinel business has everybody a bit rattled. Oh, James, he wants your opinion of the new sidearm. If you, 002, and 005 approve, as senior field agents, he'll authorize their distribution to all of the Double Os."

"I'm on my way to test it now."

"Q, your staff has been working overtime," Moneypenny murmured, with feeling. "Poor kids."

"They aren't all kids," Bond reminded her as he moved toward the door.

"Nooo…but the computer lab staff is, for the most part. And Q, you look exhausted. As if something, or _somebody_ , has been keeping you up all night."

She shot a pointed glance in Bond's direction; Q stared stonily at the floor and Bond pretended not to notice.

"Of course he's exhausted," Tanner said hastily. "He spent the morning repositioning a rogue satellite."

"He does that sort of thing all the time," Moneypenny protested. "This must be something else."

Q was becoming rather tired of hearing various colleagues and minions wonder aloud about his personal life—whether he in fact had one, and, if he had one, whom he had it with—but he remained silent. After all, Moneypenny was his friend, and she meant well.

"He'll survive it, whatever it is,"Bond was saying casually, as he made his exit. "He's young."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Q handed a black metal case containing a gun, an earpiece, and a radio to 008, who stood, rather taciturn and hangdog, in front of his workstation, just as Bond returned. The new sidearm, he reported, was remarkably easy to handle, as well as accurate when it came to assessing aim, and he had left the firing range in a positive frame of mind. He and 008 acknowledged each other coolly, and Q avoided eye contact with either of them until after 008 left, still looking glum.

"Is he giving you trouble again?" Bond asked, very quietly, and Q shook his head. "I've heard M had a word with him about his behavior with the staff."

"He's a reformed character…sort of," Q shrugged. "While you were decimating cardboard targets—at least, I hope you were—Tanner filled me in on Doinel's antics."

"I wish to God I'd never retrieved him," Bond muttered irritably. "He's been more trouble than he's worth."

"Apparently he was chatting away, almost cordially, to his interrogator—Simmonds, one of our best—and then he suddenly put his hands to his throat and keeled over," Q said, wrinkling his brow. "Complained he couldn't breathe. They hustled him off to Medical, naturally, and that's where he appeared to pass out. Somebody went running to find the Head, and he was seen to almost immediately, but nothing seemed to be wrong with him, and after a bit they had to send him back to his nice high-security prison."

Bond was frowning skeptically. "I don't imagine they got any new intel from him, did they?"

Q raised eyebrows and shoulders. "He gave us several names. Tanner and Moneypenny are checking them now."

A shrill beeping from one of the computer consoles filled the room, echoing in the cavernous space, and Q's head snapped round to find the source. Bond sighed and moved toward the door, but Q stopped him with a gesture.

"The second gun, 007. Take it home with you." His attention had been drawn to what was now appearing on one of the wall screens, but his voice was brisk, and his eyes swept Bond's face for a brief moment before he turned his face toward the screen once more.

"Thanks," Bond replied, just as briskly. "I'm pleased you trust me enough to let me take it out of MI6. Well. When you're less occupied, I hope you'll tell me how the flying, singing, and dancing surveillance cameras are coming along."

"What on earth are you talking about, 007?" Q put both hands behind his back and gave an ethereal little smile of supreme innocence. A few of his minions cackled with mirth, and Bond gave a patient sigh.

"Alright, Q, _don't_ tell me."

"I can't tell you. It's still classified. But we're not manufacturing any gadget that sings and dances, or makes you invisible, or has sex with you on command."

"Ah," said Bond, regretfully. "What a pity. It looks as though I'll have to stick to having sex with _you_."

He had said the last sentence very quietly, and none of the Q Branch staff had overheard, but Q pressed his lips tightly together and went a brilliant shade of pink. Which, along with the fact that Bond was leaning close to his ear, was nearly a dead giveaway.

"Is 007 propositioning the boss?" Manuelli hissed in a loud stage-whisper. "About bloody time, I'd say."

Q turned a chilly, grey-green stare on his minions. "Enough superficial chatter, children, if you don't mind. Go away, 007. When the new prototypes are ready for display, you'll be one of the first to see them."

"He doesn't want to see the boss's prototypes," Albery muttered. "He wants to see his—"

"That'll do," Q snapped, very loudly. "Here, 007; take your weapon and get out."

Taking his time, Bond stepped back and out of the Quartermaster's personal space, slid the gun into the holster concealed beneath his jacket, and turned to leave.

"Tomorrow evening?" he said very quietly as he strode past Q, pausing, ostensibly, to refasten his jacket.

Q nodded almost imperceptibly, lips still pressed together in a narrow line. He then turned to the blueprints strewn across his desk as the eyes of all his minions followed 007 to the door.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Beautiful Q," Bond said silkily, and his Quartermaster turned to meet 007's hot stare as he neatly and efficiently shed the last of his clothing, dropping everything, including his newest cardigan, to the floor. "I do wish you'd tell me your name," he heard Bond mutter under his breath. "It feels quite odd, shouting a letter of the alphabet at the moment of climax."

"Someday," Q said honestly. "I will. Just not now."

"Why the aura of mystery?" Bond loosened his tie and got to work on his shirt buttons, watching as his slim, naked Quartermaster crossed the room to the bed. "I suppose I'm going to have to bully it out of you."

"Is that why you won't leave me alone, at work?" Q said, with a little smile. "No wonder people are beginning to talk."

"Rubbish."

"Well, my computer lab staff, anyway. Not that they really believe there's anything going on; they just like to gossip. I think Eve knows, though. Or suspects."

"You don't know that for sure."

"If she does, she's sympathetic, and wouldn't say anything about it to Mallory."

Bond sighed. "I don't think anybody's seen us together, outside of MI6." As usual, they had met, that evening, far enough from HQ that it was unlikely they would encounter any of their colleagues, and had driven to Bond's in record time.

"Why don't we ever take your car?" Bond had asked as they screeched to a stop for a traffic light. "Or don't you trust me to drive it?"

"No," replied Q, calmly. "I've seen what happens to the cars you drive."

Once at Bond's flat, they had watched the last light fade from the sky, through the bullet-proof glass of his sitting room windows. The winter sky was a dark slate grey, but faintly pearly toward the horizon, where wisps of pink were still visible. They ate their Indian takeaway at Bond's kitchen table, drank a small quantity of excellent brandy, and then, after the barest excuse for conversation, had headed for the bedroom. Now, as Bond finished undressing, Q perched on the edge of his bed, pale and elegantly gaunt in the dim light, and eyed him with an expression that could only be described as inscrutable.

Bond seemed to be in a playful mood, and for a while they wrestled together like puppies, rolling and grappling in the wide, comfortable bed, nipping at each others' skin as Q finally pushed Bond down onto his back and climbed on top. He was fully aware that Bond could reverse their positions at any time with very little effort, but 007 lay supine, breathing fast and limbs spread wide, as Q reached for the tube in the drawer of the bedside table.

"You like getting the upper hand with me, don't you?" Bond murmured, grinning a little, and then hissing and catching his breath when Q slid fingers in.

"Mmm," said Q absently, licking into Bond's warm, brandy-tasting mouth. He was achingly erect, and could feel Bond's cock, hard and leaking, pressed against his hip. "Are you ready for me?"

He could hear Bond humming in affirmation as he settled himself against the pillows, allowing Q to slide between his legs. It wasn't difficult to figure out what he was thinking: a little momentary pain, followed by a great deal of serious pleasure, was more than worth letting his Quartermaster have the upper hand on occasion.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

It must have been more than an hour past midnight when Q woke to the sound of Bond's mobile jangling harshly.

"What, _now_?" he murmured crossly, but Bond uttered a stern "Shhh," and brought the device to his ear, pressing a finger lightly against Q's lips as he did so.

A moment later he set the mobile on the nightstand and heaved a sigh.

"What?" said Q again, drowsily. He had nearly fallen back to sleep, but Bond's next words had him wide awake and tense with surprise.

"That was Tanner," Bond said heavily, frowning into the darkness of the room. "He just wanted to alert me…it's Albert Doinel. He's escaped from prison. He's on the loose."

* * *

**Comments are very deeply appreciated.**


	14. "Goodbye, Mr Bond"

**Chapter 14: "Goodbye, Mr Bond"**

"Just how far does that fool think he's going to get?" Bond asked baldly. "Does Mallory want me to go after him?"

"No, I'd hardly think it likely," Moneypenny responded. "It's a simple prison break in most respects; I mean, Doinel may not be your ordinary prisoner, but he's unarmed, as far as we know. If he's on the run with no money, no known safe haven or associates here in London, and an all-points bulletin going out to law enforcement throughout the country, there's no way he can leave England without detection. Airports and train stations are being watched."

"What's he playing at?" Bond said, half to himself. "What does he gain by this? He must realize he'll be caught."

They were standing by the window in M's anteroom, looking out at a cloud-laden sky nearly the same shade of dark silvery-grey as Bond's silk tie, and a classic London fog.

"Here's good news," Tanner announced quietly, entering the room with his brisk but silent tread. "In part because of his bizarre behavior during his last visit, we had a miniature tracker sewn into his prison clothing. Q Branch has just picked up the signal; it's faint but readable. It's coming from the river, traveling downstream."

"Shouldn't this be turned over to the police?" Moneypenny asked, frowning. "As he's only an escaped prisoner."

"Exactly what Q just asked me," Tanner replied. "And of course the police have been notified. But we'll keep an eye on him all the same, because of his past association with Raoul Silva. M says there's the smallest chance he has a link to some homegrown terrorist organization, in which case he might have friends waiting to whisk him off to safety. But we don't know, as of yet, if he's got a boat or if he's _swimming_ down the bloody river."

"What is the idiot _doing_?" Bond said to himself, aloud, wrinkling his forehead.

"Exactly what Q just said," Tanner murmured wryly. "Did you know that you two have been picking up each other's speech patterns?"

Bond gave Tanner a sharp look, but the Chief of Staff's face wore its usual calm, inscrutable expression, and there was no hint of mockery in his eyes.

"Oh no, Q's elocution is much more precise," Moneypenny protested after a moment. "Those lovely consonants. Where was he at school, do you suppose? I was going to ask him, but…for all he's such a love, he's terribly secretive."

Secretive. Yes, Bond still knew nothing about his family or his background, let alone his name. He thought, but did not say, that there were other things hidden beneath the Quartermaster's brisk, professional public demeanor and occasional tetchiness: a fiercely dogged tenacity he called upon in moments of crisis, a sensitivity and eye for beauty, a gentleness Bond had once witnessed him displaying with the neighbor's cat, a sweetness that came through when he held Q in his arms. Because of his seeming fragility—his sylphlike physical presence, his flutey voice—Q's iron strength of will, his ability to stay focused under pressure, took some people by surprise.

"I said, speech patterns, not elocution," Tanner said blandly, interrupting Bond's wandering thoughts. "And it's his _job_ to be secretive, you know it is."

Moneypenny huffed and turned back to the window, and Bond reached for his lukewarm mug of coffee. He had come in early, at dawn, for once arriving at HQ at least an hour before his Quartermaster. He had left Q in the process of disentangling himself from the bedclothes, black brows drawn together in a drowsy frown. After a brief talk with M about what Doinel's next move might be—Bond had little to contribute in the way of possibilities—he had downed a cup of black coffee in M's anteroom with Moneypenny. They had mock-flirted under the ironic gaze of Tanner, but neither was able to put much heart into it. Then, as Bond signed off on a hard copy of the field report from his most recent assignment, Manuelli rang up from Q Branch to say that Doinel's tracker indicated he was still moving slowly downriver. Tanner replied that an agent would be dispatched to see if he had an associate waiting to pick him up.

"Then if I'm not needed…" mumbled Bond, setting down his pen. "I think I'll do a workout and then go home. I could use a few hours of sleep."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

By the time Bond walked through the door of his flat, having done a vigorous workout and showered before leaving MI6, his fatigue had left him and he felt alert and refreshed. A cryptic text message on his mobile indicated that Q would probably come by after work, and, after de-activating his security system in anticipation of this, Bond poured himself a glass of iced water (in his younger days it would have been something stronger), and wandered into the bedroom.

The bedclothes had been pulled together, but Bond thought he could still detect the faint citrusy scent he associated with his Quartermaster. A jumble of clothes lay across the armchair, at least two days' worth, that he had been meaning to take to the drycleaners'. A black tie and a dinner jacket. That had been for the dinner given by a foreign diplomat in honor of the previous M, who had been, it seems, a friend. Mallory had been there, and Tanner, Moneypenny, several of the senior Double Os, and even Q. Bond smiled a little at the memory; in the black-jacketed evening clothes Moneypenny had practically forced him to buy, Q had looked svelt and elegant, if a touch ill at ease and self-conscious. The clothes he wore to work—the cardigans, in a variety of colors, over his shirt and tie—might not be the most stylish sort of getup, and were the frequent target of sarcasm from Bond, but they suited him in a peculiar way. Close-fitting tee shirts and narrow jeans suited him even better. Completely naked, in spite of his extreme thinness, he had gorgeous, mettlesome lines and an almost brittle, delicate beauty whose starkness was softened by those waves and curls of dark hair. He moved a little like a greyhound, and reminded Bond of the fragile acrobats painted by Picasso during his Blue Period.

A faint noise in the sitting room alerted Bond to Q's presence, and his grin widened with pleasure. He was early, then. And had, no doubt, left either Michaels or Manuelli in charge of the computer lab. Turning, Bond walked down the hall and into the open, light-filled space of his sitting room to face Q…only it wasn't Q sitting on the sofa, one arm resting casually across the back. It was Albert Doinel.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"What are you doing here, Monsieur Doinel?"

Doinel stood up. A small, snub-nosed revolver was in his right hand, and he kept it trained on Bond.

"I repeat, monsieur, what are you doing here? Why aren't you floating down the Thames?"

"It occurred to me that you lot had probably burdened me with a tracker," Doinel said in coolly conversational tones. "You'll forgive me for having removed it from my prison garb and sent it on a little journey. And don't ask me how I got into your flat. You shut your security system off yourself, for which you have my thanks."

He was wearing a very scruffy pair of jeans and a worn blue denim shirt—stolen, perhaps, from somebody's clothesline—but was saved from looking like a derelict by the fact that he was clean-shaven, trim, and remarkably fit.

"How did you discover where I live, Monsieur Doinel?"

Doinel shrugged. "You have that appetizing secretary in Medical to thank. It wasn't difficult. It was easy enough to pretend to be ill, and when they took me to Medical, it was even easier to locate the employee files on the secretary's computer. I looked at them when the silly girl ran out to get help, as I collapsed, so she never knew anything about it. I've got a photographic memory, you see. None of you knew that. I have everybody's residence address, from your M to all of the Double O agents. I'll pick them off one by one, Mr Bond. But I came for you first."

"Why is that?" Bond asked in a coldly courteous voice, all the while thinking, _bloody Hanson_.

"Why do you suppose?" Doinel replied with equal coldness. His eyes were intense with what Bond realized was fury and genuine loathing. "You can't guess, Mr Bond? I heard a rumor about you, you know, as I was feigning unconsciousness in Medical. About you and the MI6 Quartermaster. Is it true? I didn't give the rumor all that much credence, when I heard it; after all, everybody says you're a dedicated womanizer. But if it's true, you should understand. You can't think you're the only MI6 agent who might harbor a strong attachment to a colleague, eh?"

"If you're referring to yourself and Raoul Silva," Bond said calmly, his eye on Doinel's gun hand, "Mr Silva ceased to be an MI6 agent many years ago."

Doinel shrugged that off. "He preferred the ladies, himself," he continued slowly. "But made exceptions. I was one of the last of those exceptions, and—" He paused for a moment, as though to collect himself. "And he trusted me. He relied on me."

"I see," said Bond in an uninflected voice.

"This is just a little payback," Doinel said, speaking in a kind of hiss between his fine, even teeth. "MI6 betrayed him. They turned their backs on him and left him to rot in a Chinese prison. Oh, he did repay them, a bit. Your previous M…he destroyed her, didn't he? But he didn't go far enough. That's why I put together my list. My termination list, so to speak. Would you care to hear it?"

Bond inclined his head, his eyes surreptitiously flickering in the direction of the Walther sitting on top of his desk, only a few feet from his would-be executioner. At the same time, he forced himself to breathe deeply, clear his mind, focus on the movements of the man standing before him, and on the fingers of his own right hand, which he clenched and unclenched slowly and stealthily, in preparation.

"It's quite a list," Doinel mused, maintaining his aim with an unwavering grip. "Your M, of course. His Chief of Staff, and his assistant. All of the Double Os. You find this entertaining, Mr Bond?"

Bond's mouth had curved upward in a cold, taut grin of rage, but in the back of his mind, a little voice was repeating. "Not Q. Not Q."

He allowed his head to turn slowly towards the Walther, and Doinel followed his glance and saw it, as Bond had intended he should. Keeping his own firearm aimed steadily at Bond's torso, Doinel reached out carefully and gathered up the Walther with his left hand.

"Careless of you to deactivate your alarm system, eh Mr Bond."

"Yes, wasn't it," Bond replied flatly. "Forgetful of me."

_Not Q_.

He certainly wasn't going to tell this man _why_ he had deactivated it. He wasn't going to say anything that might remind Albert Doinel about the MI6 Quartermaster.

"Well, you can't be getting any younger, can you? You need to up your game, I think, old son."

"Perhaps."

"Not that it matters now, of course." Doinel glanced at the Walther in his left hand for a millisecond. "This is a pretty toy. Oh…did you know I'm ambidextrous in addition to having a photographic memory?"

_Of course you are_ , Bond was about to say bitterly, when Doinel suddenly raised the Walther, still in his left hand, and pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened, of course. Q's coding of the grip, to answer only to Bond's palm print, had worked as he had expected it would. But he had hoped Doinel would abandon his own gun, in an attempt to kill his adversary with his adversary's weapon. No, Doinel still had a firm grasp of his pistol—damn his ambidextrous ability—and Bond would have no opportunity to capture it. Now, if the bastard would just drop the Walther…

"Did you know that your pistol is malfunctioning?" Doinel asked in a chilly voice. "Tsk, tsk, tsk. What shoddy workmanship."

"A pity," said Bond absently, having come to the realization that he had more or less run out of options. He had no weapons to hand, and if he lunged at Doinel, the man would simply shoot him at point blank range.

"I turned myself in with all of this in mind. Naturally, someone might catch me or kill me afterward, but I do have contingency plans, should I get away. If I make it back to Canada, I know a bloke with ties to a cyberterrorist group that's now forming in the States. The perfect job for me, don't you think? Now, Mr Bond, stop moving about—"

Bond had been easing forward, in the hope of taking Doinel by surprise, so that he could slide under his guard and at least attempt to disarm him.

"—stop moving about, that is, if you want a clean death. I could hardly miss, at this range."

Bond wasn't particularly afraid of dying. A man of his profession couldn't be. But he would miss Q. A silly thing to occur to him, perhaps, when he had never had any set belief in an afterlife.

"I would give you a moment to _reflect on your life_ ," Doinel was saying calmly. "But we really haven't the time. I have work to do." He tossed the apparently useless Walther aside, sending it sliding across the floor, _away from Bond_ , keeping his own weapon trained on his target's midsection.

Bond supposed it was customary, before dying, or more accurately, before being killed, to take a moment for reflection and regret. There were many things he could reflect on, had he a moment to think of them, and possibly just as many things he could regret. And then there was Q. Q, with his ferocious intelligence, his defensive snark and his hidden sweetness, his thin, lovely body and rampant hair, was more than a colleague, and more than an object of casual lust. It was the likelihood—no, the certainty—he would not see Q again that he regretted most of all. Bond's chest suddenly ached and tightened, not with fear but with a violent and overwhelming sense of sorrow. His beautiful, brilliant Q, who had come to mean so much more to him than he had ever thought possible. And perhaps Q would miss him too…?

Doinel raised his gun ever so slightly, and aimed at Bond's chest with a rock-steady hand.

"Goodbye, Mr Bond."

Bond's eyes closed involuntarily and he flung himself to the right in a last ditch effort as Doinel squeezed the trigger; the gun roared and Bond felt a searing blow along the outside of his left upper arm, and staggered backward. Almost simultaneously, he heard a second loud bang, and, expecting the impact of a second bullet, he opened his eyes to see Doinel hurled sideways, the top of his head blown to bits in a mass of blood and bone. Blinking, and dimly aware of the burning sensation in his arm, Bond turned his head to see Q standing perhaps fifteen feet away, eyes wide open, blazing and fierce as a feral cat's, feet planted apart in the traditional combat stance with the abandoned Walther, pointing at the spot where Doinel had stood seconds before, in his unwavering grasp.

Shaking his head to clear it, Bond took another step backward and felt his shoulders hit the wall. Then he was sliding slowly down, as Q, moving like the leopard Bond so often compared him to, dropped the Walther and raced to him. Bond could feel the strength in those slender hands as Q propped him carefully against the wall, knelt beside him, and examined his arm. Looking down, Bond could see that his shirt sleeve was dark and sodden with blood, and that more blood was running down his wrist and dripping onto the floor.

Q had located a handkerchief, which he proceeded to use as a tourniquet. "I told you I was modifying that second Walther," he said in a carefully even voice as he worked, fingers steady and precise. "I coded it to my palm-print as well as yours. As an added precaution. Since we seem," he paused for a moment to tie a knot in the cloth, "to be in each other's company rather frequently."

Having dealt with the tourniquet, he sat down next to Bond, holding him against his shoulder, as he tapped the comm link in his own ear. "Hang on, Bond. We'll have people here inside of five minutes."

Bond grunted in response, and managed a grin. In spite of the tourniquet there still seemed to be a lot of bleeding; had the bullet clipped an artery? Difficult to tell, but he could actually feel—that old cliché—his strength ebbing away. He could hear Q's muttered growl of frustration as he tightened the knot in the handkerchief, and raised his head to have a look at him.

Q's eyes were swimming but his voice was level and strong as he addressed the comm link. "I need medical evac immediately. _Immediately_ , do you understand? _Now_." His hand gripped Bond's arm, directly over the wound, like a vise, to keep the flow of blood to a minimum.

Bond found his voice. "Well done, Q."

"Don't move," Q said. "They're coming." He was white as a sheet and his own shirt was now stained with crimson, but his voice was as calm as if he was turning in a quarterly financial report to M.

"Right," replied Bond, lifting one eyebrow. He was beginning to feel a little lightheaded; not, he knew, a particularly good sign. "You know, I could really use a drink."

Q gave a sigh of anxiety and frustration. "Bond."

" _James_."

Q tightened his fingers round Bond's arm, as Bond glanced at the sprawled corpse of Albert Doinel. "You've made a mess of my carpet."

Q hissed with impatience as he addressed the comm link. "I said _now_. Hurry."

"That gun," Bond said, sagging back against Q's shoulder. "Clever boy." It seemed to him that he could hear voices in the hallway, and the pounding of feet, but that didn't much matter at the moment. "Q," he began, closing his eyes, and then let the sweet solace of unconsciousness sweep him away.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

It wasn't until some time later that he came to himself, in a hospital bed, a tube running into his arm, a monitor beeping somewhere, an ache where he had been put back together by a surgical team. It had been a clean shot, he was told; a sizeable hole, but there were no bullet fragments inside him, there was no extensive muscle damage; he had only required internal and external stitches and a hefty blood transfusion, and should recover without any complications. Q, a little less pale, still in his bloodstained shirt, was sitting at his bedside. Later, he was replaced by Moneypenny, who sent Q home for some much-needed rest (he had refused to leave until he knew Bond was out of danger), and even later, by Tanner, who told him that M would come to see him as soon as he could get away.

"For a debriefing, no doubt," Bond said dryly, and Tanner did not contradict him.

They fell silent as a nurse entered the room, clucked over Bond's IV, made notes on his chart, and then departed.

"You're a lucky bastard," Tanner said mildly, proffering a gargantuan box of chocolates. "The chocs are from some of the ladies at MI6. _I_ brought you a bottle of Dom Perignon, but the doctor says you're not to have it."

"And how does _that_ make me a lucky bastard?"

"Lucky to be alive, you stupid fuck," replied Tanner, abandoning his usual formality. "M was livid when he heard that you'd disengaged your alarm system. If it hadn't been for the Quartermaster, M would be composing your funeral eulogy—something Ms have had to do with remarkable regularity—and the entire female staff of MI6 would be dressed in mourning."

"Don't be an idiot, Bill," Bond mumbled, fighting the morphine-induced drowsiness that was threatening to overwhelm him. "If it hadn't been for Q, you'd all be dead. How is Q, anyway?"

"I imagine he's fine. Getting some well-deserved sleep." Tanner wrinkled his brow. " _He's_ probably better than _you_ deserve, as well."

Bond shot the MI6 Chief of Staff a sharp look for the second time that day, but Tanner's expression was once again placid and unreadable.

"Give me a little credit," Bond said dryly, gripping the bedsheet in an effort to stay awake. "If I hadn't disengaged my alarm system, and the cocky bastard hadn't burbled his entire strategy to me, we never would have found out what he was planning. Granted, I wouldn't have been shot, but that doesn't matter, because sooner or later he would have killed all of us."

Tanner made a noise of acknowledgement, and then, unexpectedly, his usually stoic features broke into an ironic grin.

"What," growled Bond irritably, "is so bloody funny?" The morphine was clearly going to win the battle; his eyelids felt as heavy as if they had been hung with lead weights.

"Oh, you'll be here for a few days at least," Tanner replied casually. "And I was just thinking. About your refined and very expensive dining habits. We all know what hospital meals are like, now don't we?"

Bond must have looked singularly grim at the unwelcome reminder, because Tanner's mouth quirked and he gave one of his very rare chuckles.

"You ought to be used to them by now," he added, leaning back in his chair as he watched Bond's eyelids flutter and then fall.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Bond woke, next morning, to the ministrations of a nurse taking his temperature, the sight of several arrangements of flowers and cards on his bedside table—"From your friends at work, luv,"—and a text on his mobile, from Q.

The message read, "Feeling better?" Bond snorted, imagining the anxious but sardonic tilt of Q's eyebrows as he sent it.

The doctor who came in to see him moments later was a plump, terrifyingly jovial woman who seemed convinced that motherly bullying was the best way to get her patients on the road to recovery. She fussed and tutted, twisted her lips over the dressing on Bond's arm, and told him that a cart would be coming round with a selection of newspapers, if he felt up to reading. And that if he wanted a drinky-poo, another trolley would come along with a choice of lemonade or iced tea. And if he felt up to eating a solid meal, that would be coming even later.

Bond, who was quite accustomed to spending time in hospitals, made no complaint, save about the food, and waited patiently until Q reappeared after five o'clock.

Floral tributes continued to pour in from associates and acquaintances, including one mammoth, grossly top-heavy arrangement of hydrangeas from the staff of Q Branch ("Good God! They mean well," Q said, when he saw it), and a small, much more tasteful vase of roses from Moneypenny. There was even a card with a brief note from 008.

"He's grateful that he was further down on the list for elimination," Bond snorted, and Q could only agree with him, before filling him in on the reaction to all of this at HQ. It was he who had come to the realization, almost at once, that the tracker whose movements his minions were following could not possibly be still attached to Doinel.

"I mean, it was ridiculous," Q murmured in explanation. "A child could have figured it out. The bloody signal suddenly reversed course and went _upriver_. And then down again. Between Westminster and Greenwich. Now what does that sort of thing, on the river, do you suppose?"

"A sightseeing cruise boat," said Bond, rolling his eyes. "He latched it onto one of those."

"Exactly so," Q replied with satisfaction, yawning. His thin face looked a little wan, and there were dark smudges beneath the grey-green eyes, but his brow, beneath that riotous hair, was unfurrowed and relaxed. "A fool would have realized this, sooner or later. Mr Doinel wasn't as intelligent as we thought. When the tracker made a stop at Westminster Pier the first time, I knew what he'd done. I went to your flat straight away, as a precaution."

Doinel's prison break, Q went on to explain, had been planned for weeks, and had been facilitated by a fellow prisoner. While Doinel's new friend performed sex favors for a guard, Doinel, as arranged, had crept up behind the hapless fellow, knocked him unconscious, and effected his escape.

After the attack on Bond, Q had been tasked with arranging for improved security systems at the residences of all field operatives and MI6 top brass, and Tanner had been given the job of telling 007 he was not, under _almost_ any circumstance, to switch off his.

Although Moneypenny had muttered that Hanson deserved to be sacked, the Head of Medical chose to overlook her carelessness this one time. How could she have known, he argued reasonably, that Doinel had a photographic memory? And she was achingly sorry.

"Hah!" said Moneypenny, when she heard this. (As secretary-assistant to M, her name had been on Doinel's list.) "Sorry, is she? Stupid bitch."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

During his third day in hospital, Bond was alone for the greater part of the time, save for the members of the medical profession who trooped in and out of his room.

This solitude, which he rather welcomed, gave him the opportunity to give his arrangement—oh, bloody hell, his _relationship_ —with Q some uninterrupted thought.

He had already faced the fact that this "thing" he had with Q was unlike any personal connection he had ever experienced in the past. Beyond the unbelievable sex, it fulfilled needs Bond had never wanted to admit he had. It was energizing and soothing at the same time, and kept him mentally alert—given Q's unquestionable brilliance, it had to. It gave him physical satisfaction of the very best sort, intellectual stimulation, good companionship. Q understood the nature of his work, made no demands on his time, was sensitive to Bond's moods, never spoke about what future, if any, they might have together. His sharp banter and testiness gave Bond as much pleasure as his intermittent tenderness; his hard, thin, boyish body responded like music whenever they were in bed; he harbored no real jealousy of the marks Bond was more or less expected to seduce. This "thing," therefore, was not something Bond had any intention of giving up.

And what did it give Q? Bond was intuitive enough to guess that Q might be in love with him, but also knew that he would probably never admit to it unless pressed (and perhaps not even then), and that he would never use it as an emotional weapon.

The next morning, in spite of the grumbling of his surgeon and the skeptical frown of the attending nurse, Bond discharged himself from the hospital and sent a text message to Q as he waited for his papers to be signed.

"Going home."


	15. Sunrise

**Chapter 15: Sunrise**

"Oh my _God_ , Bond," Q said out loud, and heads turned in the MI6 computer lab.

"He may be your god, sir," Albery murmured primly. "But he isn't mine."

"What's he done now, sir?" queried Manuelli, tugging absent-mindedly at her nut-brown curls. "I thought he was in hospital."

"He's discharged himself," Q snapped, glowering at the text message on his mobile. He set the phone down on his workstation and turned away from his curious staff, but the minions closest to him could hear their boss, who never swore during work hours, muttering a stream of invective, heavily punctuated with four-letter expletives, at his computer keyboard, pausing only to cough several times into his handkerchief.

Earlier that morning, Q had left the bunker and trekked aboveground to M's anteroom, to have a word with Moneypenny about memos he had received, concerning the Q Branch budget. At least, that had been the reason he had given for his visit; both he and Moneypenny, not to mention Tanner, were fully aware of why he was there. He no doubt could have simply hacked into the hospital's computer system, but had decided to seek information through proper channels—Tanner and Moneypenny would understand. After several casual exchanges on the subject of the budget, Q had asked after Bond and was told that he was doing well, and expected to be released in several days' time. Nevertheless all three of them were still so on edge about Albert Doinel's plan to eliminate much of the chain of command, and all of the Double Os, at MI6, not to mention Bond's near brush with death (the last of which they should have been used to), that they felt punch drunk as well as exhausted. Moneypenny spilled a brand new bottle of nail lacquer all over her shoes, and Q and Tanner ran through a scene from _The Tempest_ , with Q playing Ariel to Tanner's Prospero, in order to calm themselves down.

" _Remember I have done thee worthy service_ ," Q warbled, and then sneezed violently as Mallory pushed open his office door himself.

"Yes, worthy service indeed. However, we're the foreign intelligence service, gentlemen, not a training camp for the Royal Shakespeare Company," Mallory had remarked dryly, his glance moving from Q to Tanner. "Q, kindly remove that feather duster from your head. There's a counter-espionage specialist from the DCRI arriving in a quarter of an hour, and I don't want him to think we've run mad. Miss Moneypenny, are you all right?"

Moneypenny was mopping up a small pool of crimson from the floor around her shoes.

"Oh," said Q, dislodging the mass of feathers from his tangled hair at the mention of France's homeland intelligence agency. "We were just, er…" And then he sneezed again. And again.

"It's the feathers," Moneypenny had murmured reassuringly, handing him a box of tissues. But by the time he returned to the computer lab, a handful of tissues later, he realized that he had come down with a full-blown cold. Now he was sniffing audibly—Manuelli promptly materialized at his work station with his Scrabble mug, filled to the brim with hot Earl Grey—and Bond's text message put him in an anything but cheerful mood. Why, why, oh why did Bond always buck authority, ignore advice, and do whatever he fucking pleased?

Well he, Q, would have something to say to James Bond, 007, the moment he saw him. Something along the lines of, "You don't suppose the doctors wanted to keep you in hospital for the pleasure of your company, do you?" He might say something else, about the danger of infection, and the need to give his body a well-earned rest, and the idiocy of Double Os who thought they knew more about such things than their surgeons…if only he could stop sneezing.

As his eyes turned to the satellite map on the large wall screen before him, he heard subdued giggling from his minions, and Manuelli appeared at his elbow once again, looking faintly concerned.

"You've a feather in your hair, sir," she murmured, as she poured another dollop of hot tea into his mug. Q gave her a watery smile and sighed as he plucked the offending object from his fringe.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Q left MI6 promptly at five, a rare occurrence for him, and, once at home in the quiet, spartan ambiance of his flat, downed a goodly dose of cold medication and made himself a large mug of tea with honey and lemon. A half hour or so later, as he was beginning to feel the welcome effects of the analgesic, cough suppressant, and antihistamine, his doorbell buzzed, and he crossed the room to peer through the peephole at whoever was there. Confronted with the unexpected presence of James Bond in his stark, white hallway, Q unfastened the lock and pulled the door open.

"How did you—?" And then he stopped, remembering that Bond had enough security clearance to access the code for the building's front door. He did not, however, have an electronic key card to Q's flat, and, Q realized with a jolt, the hallway security camera was even now sending an image of 007 to HQ. The minions in Q Branch must have been dancing a jig of elation.

"Why didn't you ring me first?" blurted Q with consternation, the stern lecture about Bond's health having flown right out of his head. "You _know_ about the cameras…I could have disabled them, like I always do."

"Really, Quartermaster," Bond said, walking calmly into the flat. "You don't suppose the staff of MI6 will go into shock to know that a field agent is paying the Head of Q Branch a little visit. I mean, I'm quite harmless. They'll think it's perfectly innocent. Look, I'm wearing a sling." He gestured at his arm with a jerk of his chin.

"Nothing's innocent if it involves you, Bond," Q said sharply, shutting and locking the door. "And everybody at HQ knows that."

"Well there's a fine welcome," Bond retorted, grinning. "HQ already knows that you came to _my_ flat…what was it, four days ago? I thought you might be happy to see I'm up and about. Especially since it's thanks to you that I'm alive at all."

Honestly, had 007 expected him to run into his arms in a flood of tears? (Probably not, Q acknowledged to himself; Bond knew him better than that.) He gave Bond what he hoped was a withering look and then said, "Oh no," as Bond's eyes shifted towards the bottle of Scotch on the sideboard.

"Alcohol is the last thing you should be having at the moment." Q then launched into his prepared speech of admonition about the follies of discharging oneself from the hospital early, not taking the advice of medical personnel, and turning to strong drink when his body was probably still fighting infection. Bond simply walked to him and took him by one shoulder with his free hand, thereby shutting him up.

"Q," Bond said gently. "Be quiet, will you?" And then he leaned forward and kissed him softly on the lips, causing Q's eyes to go wide with surprise before half-closing with pleasure.

They had never kissed like this before. Bond had never kissed him like this before. In the past, they had only kissed in the bedroom (or, in one memorable instance, on the floor of Bond's sitting room), either during, or just before, having sex. They had never touched, caressed, or indulged in any form of physical intimacy in either of their residences, except as an immediate prelude to an erotic event. This was different. It was the first time they had ever kissed like lovers, rather than two workplace acquaintances who might occasionally meet up for a good, tension-taming shag. When Bond finally drew his mouth away, Q stepped back just a little so as to scrutinize his face. As usual, there was nothing in the set of those chiseled, strong features, those cool azure eyes, to hint at what was going on behind them.

"You shouldn't worry," Bond said, as Q's eyes refocused. "They injected me with enough antibiotics to kill a legion of bacteria, before I checked myself out."

"I've got a cold," Q mumbled gruffly, suddenly remembering. "The last thing we need is for you to catch it, and antibiotics don't make a difference."

Bond ignored this. "I've come to take you to dinner," he said, adjusting the sling draped over the shoulder of his perfectly cut jacket. "Tanner was right. The hospital food nearly sent me into a relapse."

"You _drove_ here?"

"Certainly I did," Bond replied coolly. "I'm perfectly capable of driving one-handed. The only thing that's a bit tricky is the gear shift. I have to take my arm out of the sling."

Q groaned. "Let me drive, then. Give me a minute, and…" Not able to think of anything else to say, he went in search of his winter jacket and a bottle of his cold medication, returning to find Bond perusing his bookshelves with a peculiar gleam in his eyes.

"What are you searching for?"

"I'll tell you when I find it. Do you fancy an Italian dinner?"

"All things considered, perhaps you should choose the venue, as you've only just escaped from hospital."

"Italian it is, then. You can come back to mine, after. I might be in need of a bit of nursing."

"You can't order me about," Q said, shoving the bottle of cold tablets into his pocket. "I bloody outrank you." He then squinted down at a recalcitrant jacket button, wondering whether he should have reminded 007 quite so bluntly, even in jest. (The last time he had mentioned his higher status had been in that Kyoto hotel, for fuck's sake.) When he looked up again, Bond's back was to him, and there was an odd stillness to his pose that made Q take notice.

"Aha," said Bond in a very dry voice, and turned to show him a dog-eared book whose worn cover and well-thumbed pages spoke of years of handling: _John Keats, Selected Poems_.

"Our landlady gave that to me for my birthday, when I was sixteen," Q mumbled, sniffling as he searched his pockets for a handkerchief.

"It isn't the title I was exclaiming about," Bond replied, and flipped the book open. A plain book plate was pasted inside the front cover, and the initials **M B H** had been inscribed there in what looked like an early phase of Q's spiky handwriting.

"Well?" said Bond, eyebrows raised, a hint of smile lifting one corner of that infuriatingly sensuous, thin-lipped mouth.

Q looked decidedly uncomfortable. "I said I'd tell you," he said, unconsciously chewing on his crimson lower lip. "When I'm ready to." There was a brief pause. "Even though I'm not _supposed_ to."

"Right," said Bond, with a deliberately melodramatic sigh. "Come on then, _Q_ , I'm famished."

"You must be a godsend to four-star restaurants across the city," Q mumbled, and rolled his eyes. Bond gave a one-shouldered shrug, and then, to Q's renewed surprise, slid his right arm loosely round his Quartermaster's narrow waist, under the bulky jacket.

"I suppose I can trust you with my car," Bond said amiably. He seemed quite oblivious to the fact that he was behaving in a distinctly…un-Bondlike manner, and his mouth was brushing lightly at Q's jawline. "Especially since _you bloody outrank me_."

At least their usual mode of banter was intact. But why in blazes was Bond treating him, physically, with such uncharacteristic _affection_?

"I didn't mean to pull rank with you; sorry," Q said in a confused voice, wondering whether Bond's brain had been addled by the massive doses of antibiotics, causing an odd but temporary personality change.

"Was that an apology I just heard?" Bond said, amusement in his voice. "A red letter day, this is."

Q suddenly pushed him away, and could see that Bond was flummoxed, but only for a moment as Q turned his head to the side and sneezed mightily.

"It appears I _am_ going to get your cold, Q," Bond murmured with mock severity as his Quartermaster sheepishly mopped at his nose and watering eyes.

"I hobe dot," Q replied earnestly, relenting and stepping back into 007's one-armed embrace.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Q drove them, in 007's Jaguar (a stopgap car, until Q could outfit another Aston Martin—he had just begun work on a DB9), to the eatery of Bond's choice, a small, exclusive-looking seafood restaurant, specializing in upscale Sicilian nouvelle cuisine. His cold medicine had kicked in, and the sniffles were now few and far between, so that he was able to appreciate the tantalizing scent of garlic, herbs, tomatoes, and spice.

"Well, aren't we the healthy pair," Bond said under his breath as they waited for the maître d' to seat them, which he did with alacrity when he caught sight of his guests.

"Do you know the staff of every overpriced eating place in London?" Q said curiously, once they were settled at a table. The waiter, unasked, had already brought them two glasses of the house white.

"Quite a few of them, actually," Bond replied modestly, and turned his attention to the heavy, gilt-edged menu.

Perhaps an hour later, Q stared down at his flat stomach, wondering why it wasn't distended and round as a football, and stood up with an effort. "I'll drive you home, but I probably shouldn't—"

"What, no coffee, Quartermaster?"

"I don't think I need any," Q responded honestly; he was, in truth, too fired up with nervous energy to feel tired, in spite of all the medication. "Just give the car keys to me again, please."

Bond was smiling affably as he handed them over, and he continued to look pleased with himself during the mostly silent drive home. Once in his flat, he gingerly removed his jacket and, perhaps conscious of Q's stern eye on him, refrained from either brandy or Scotch. Looking round the sitting room, Q noted how much more orderly the place was than it had been on his first visit; furniture was neatly arranged, books and CDs were on the shelves, and not a single packing crate remained.

"I should let you get some rest," he said in a subdued voice, watching 007 move about the room with his smooth, catlike stride.

"I'd rather like you to stay," Bond said, and Q raised a forefinger in warning.

"You know we can't do anything, er," he said crisply, attempting to sound severe. "Not until you're stronger. Medical would never forgive me if—"

Bond raised both hands, palms outward, in protest. "God forbid that we should upset the doctors. I'll be good as gold, I promise."

Q looked at him doubtfully. "Right," he said, hoping this wasn't going to be awkward for either of them, but as it turned out, it wasn't awkward at all. It was oddly comforting and relaxing, to lie cradled cautiously in the crook of Bond's good arm, breathing in his scent, luxuriating in the warmth of his skin, exchanging a few words now and then, and feeling the delicious tug of Bond's fingers running lightly through his hair, a gentle, repetitive stroke.

Q ran his own fingertips over the bandage on Bond's arm. "I can help you change the dressing, tomorrow. If it heals cleanly, which it should unless you do something too strenuous, there'll be minimal scarring."

"I'm a veritable road map of scars," Bond said wryly, raising his head to gaze down the length of his body.

"They're more like the constellations," Q said a little dreamily, yawning.

"A bloody galaxy, in fact," Bond muttered. He reached for his Quartermaster, who batted his hands away.

"Nothing too ambitious, Bond," Q reminded him. "Until Medical's checked you out, tomorrow."

Bond rolled his eyes. "In six weeks or so I should be fit enough to thrash 008 in a training session," he said rather smugly, looking at Q from the corner of his eye. "Once I'm back in shape, or as good a shape as I can expect in my aged state."

He traced his Quartermaster's wide but narrow-lipped and sweetly shaped mouth with a fingertip, and smiled when Q caught it between his teeth.

"I can understand why you haven't told me your name," he said quietly, and Q gave a sudden, noticeable start. "But I know nothing whatsoever about you, apart from your personality, your professional capabilities and…this. You've been acquainted with me long enough, I think, to realize that I'm quite discrete."

Q made a mumbling sound against the pillow that might or might not have been an affirmative response.

"Do you have family, Q?"

There was a brief pause, and then, "I have parents," Q said grudgingly. "They're rather sweet and quite ordinary. I was more or less raised by my brothers, which may or may not have been a good thing."

"Brothers? How many?"

"Two," said Q, even more grudgingly. "Older."

"Really? It must have been good fun to have brothers to play with."

"Not my brothers, and they didn't play."

Bond hesitated, on the verge of letting the subject drop. "Do they have any idea about, um, this?"

He gestured vaguely at the bedclothes.

Q shrugged, eyes downcast. "It doesn't matter. If they don't, they'll deduce it sooner or later. They're both very much on the genius level. Much brighter than I am."

"Now there's a terrifying thought," Bond said in his driest voice. "And I hardly think it likely. Do I want to meet them, ever?"

Q gave him a horrified look, but made no reply.

"Q, they can't be that dreadful."

"You may meet them eventually," Q mumbled reluctantly, lowering his eyes once again. "Not soon, I hope. And you won't be able to say I didn't warn you."

"What do they do?"

"My oldest brother's, um, some sort of consultant to the government?" Q's hesitancy made the statement sound like a question. "And it's difficult to explain what my middle brother does."

"Well. And I thought _you_ were secretive. Do they live in London? "

Q heaved an explosive sigh. "James."

He had spoken without thinking, and saw the corners of Bond's mouth lift slightly at the use of his first name.

"Are they married?"

Q made a derisive noise somewhere at the back of his throat. "We're rather an eccentric family. You'd be better off never having anything to do with them."

"Q, do you dislike them?"

"No! No…I…I'm actually rather fond of them, but I prefer to keep my distance, except on special occasions. They can be quite, er, exhausting."

"They can't possibly be worse than some of the people you and I have had to deal with in the line of duty," Bond retorted, still dryly. Q made no response, staring darkly at nothing in particular, until Bond ran one hand down his slender torso, feeling the delicate symmetry of Q's ribs beneath his fingers.

"I haven't forgotten," he said, "that you're ticklish," and was rewarded by Q's musical giggle, followed by a reluctant smile. "But really, I'm curious. You know what little there is to know about my family. Why does yours—"

Q was astonished to hear that his own voice was breathy and faint, like that of a nervous child. "Could we stop talking about my relations now, please? It sort of, um, destroys the mood for, well, if you know what I mean."

Really, if Bond was going to go on and on about his family…

But Bond did not go on and on about Q's family. His expression simply registered surprise—probably because he had never heard his self-assured Quartermaster speak with such uncertainty before—and then he grinned, not a little suggestively.

"The mood, Q?" Bond said, raising an eyebrow, and Q stared at him. "I thought you'd put a moratorium on love until I'm better."

Had Bond just used the L word? His hand was now stroking idly up and down Q's chest and stomach, pausing just below his navel, and Q bit back a moan of pleasure.

"I like you like this," Bond murmured, a touch of mischief in his smile. "All hot and trembly." Q attempted to look indignant, but as he turned his head, he caught a glimpse of himself in the wardrobe mirror—eyelids drooping languidly over eyes that were brilliant with arousal, lips moist and red, parted slightly over his panting breath.

"You need rest, need to recover," Q said desperately, because he could see Bond's eyes fastening on his mouth. "And you know perfectly well that I'm a man of iron resolve."

"We'll take it slow and easy, little leopard," Bond replied, in Q's ear, his voice low and rough; he pulled Q against him, and Q's iron resolve promptly rolled over and gave up.

"Oh," he said, gasping, but also aware, as Bond began to roll on top, that 007 was becoming far too _active_ for his own good. The only way Bond was going to lie still was if Q took matters into his own hands, so to speak.

"Don't move," he managed to say, pushing Bond onto his back and straddling him. "Just…don't move." Bond's rigid cock was straining upward in the direction of his stomach, and Q grasped it and pulled it towards himself, then enclosing it, with his own erection, in his fist. The shaft was already slippery with moisture, and the sound of Bond's harsh breathing, and subsequent moans, urged him on as he deftly put the fingers of both hands to work, his head falling back as a blindingly ecstatic release overtook them both.

"Are you alright, Bond?" he asked somewhat later, when they could both breath normally again. Although on the verge of sleep, he was still trembling a little as he looked blearily but guiltily at the bandage on 007's arm.

"Quite fine, thanks," was the reply. Bond looked, Q thought drowsily, like the proverbial cat who had just devoured a delicious canary as he yawned and stretched with a self-satisfied smile, a faint sheen of sweat highlighting throat and chest, his short, fair hair spiky and damp.

His own hair had fallen forward over his brow and was getting into his eyes; Bond brushed the waves and curls back with gentle fingers.

"You have hair like a Pre-Raphaelite angel, Q."

"Hardly. But if you think I have outrageous hair," Q said, brightening suddenly in spite of the fact that he was half asleep, "you should see my middle brother's."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Q woke with a start to find himself alone in bed; the clock on the nightstand told him that it was barely six.

Rubbing his eyes with his fists, he stood up, wrapped himself in the sheet, and made his way to the sitting room, where he could just make out the figure of James Bond at the window, his back to the room, staring out into the slowly diminishing darkness. He could tell that Bond sensed his presence, although he said nothing until Q had joined him at the window, close beside him but not touching.

"I'm not much of a romantic, I'm afraid," Bond said quietly, staring out at the horizon—or what he could see of it through the buildings around them—and the warm grey color, delicately lit with pink, of the sunrise that was just beginning to make its appearance.

Q gave a sardonic little tight-lipped grin. "No. Neither am I."

"I'm no good at all at flowery declarations."

"Oh. Hmm. I'm not either."

"So. How to put this?" Bond touched Q's wrist lightly, then drew his hand away. "I've spoken of this once before, if you remember. I don't want our—whatever you call it—to stop. I want you to be with me. Oh, I'm not saying we should move in together, unless that's what _you_ want. But I'd like…" He paused for a moment. "For us to go on with what we've started. Permanently, or for as long as you can manage to deal with me. Don't answer now, little leopard. Just give it your consideration."

Q took a deep breath. "I _have_ given it my consideration."

Bond gave a little grin. "I won't be angry if you say no."

"Oh _shut up_ , James," Q snapped, staring fiercely at the pink of the lightening sky in the east, so as to avoid looking Bond in the face. "You know I'm not going to say no, _bloody_ hell! As if I had any choice in the matter."

"Of course you have a choice in the matter."

"Yes," Q all but shouted, black brows drawn together. "I'm saying yes! Now I'm going back to bed!" He marched off, scowling, the sheet bundled about him, looking more like an irate stormcloud than anything else, but when Bond rejoined him in the bedroom, under the duvet, it became quite clear that he wasn't angry at all.

"I ought to have my head examined," Q said mournfully when he finally came up for air. "I must be out of my mind. But you…you must feel the same."

"Out of my mind, no. But. I confess I never thought I'd…" Bond said abruptly. "Or with a…" His voice, rather flat and uninflected, trailed away, and he appeared lost in a study of the red mark he had just sucked onto the base of Q's slender throat.

"Were you going to say, 'with a man,' or simply, 'with a scrawny Quartermaster'?" Q asked in a deceptively docile voice, but his eyes were suddenly dancing with quiet amusement. "You know you don't have to tell anybody. In fact, we probably shouldn't. It can be our secret, if anything can be secret in this day and age."

"I hardly think WikiLeaks would be interested," Bond said lightly, and Q cackled briefly with mirth. "I'm not going to advertise it, certainly, but I don't really care if people know."

"You must be joking," Q replied, just as lightly. "Think of all the glamorous female foreign agents and informants who would be tearing their hair and beating their breasts with rage. Far better for your job if we keep things quiet."

"Yes, Mr MBH," Bond said, with mock obedience. "And I'll wager you're quite right. Best to keep private and professional lives separate. We don't want to compromise the safety of our colleagues, and it stands to reason that we should never let emotion get in the way of duty."

Q frowned, but then refrained from a snarky retort because he knew that what Bond had just said was the truth. Yes, 007 was coldly organized and efficient, a man who tended to compartmentalize things, and Q acknowledged that he, himself, was in some ways similar. He had never let his personal life intrude upon his work and activities in Q Branch; he made an effort to see that his demeanor at MI6 was consistently professional. Like everybody else—like Bond, even—there were areas in which he knew himself to be vulnerable. His attitude had always been that he was damned if he was going to let anyone else know what those were. But now, perhaps…if there was anybody with whom he could be open about himself, it was Bond. Gradually, of course, and over time…

He felt Bond's fingers tracing the angled lines of his cheekbones, brush his eyelids with a feather-light touch. With a little sigh, he slid an arm across Bond's chest, turned his face into the warmth and solidity of his shoulder, and told him his name.

* * *

**Comments, pretty please?**


	16. Mr MBH

**Chapter 16: Mr MBH**

When M summoned Agent 007 to his inner sanctum “for a little chat,” Bond was not particularly surprised. He only hoped the chat would not prove to be distasteful or embarrassing. Not that he was in any way embarrassed about his present situation. On the contrary, he found it to be both productive and eminently satisfying.

Naturally, he had neglected to disable the security cameras outside the door to his flat, on the memorable occasion—only a few days earlier—that he had brought Q home with him, after leaving the hospital. This, coupled with the images sent from the camera outside Q’s door, earlier the same evening, had no doubt done the trick. Mild fatigue, coupled with the affects of his prescribed medication, had driven thoughts of the surveillance equipment right out of his mind. Or had he subconsciously wanted Mallory to know? And it was M, after all, who had been furious with him for switching off his security system the day Albert Doinel came to call.

Since that rather significant evening, or rather, early morning, when he and his young Quartermaster had come to an agreement about things, they had both been extremely discrete. They had not arrived at HQ together, and had not left work at the same time. Their workplace behavior towards each other was eminently brisk and professional. They exchanged no meaningful glances, and certainly no suggestive, or even friendly, interoffice emails. (“I’m not the only skilled hacker in this establishment,” Q had reminded him dryly.) As neither of them was demonstrative by nature, anyway, this suited them perfectly.

Bond had been “invited” for a meeting with Mallory first. But it had come as no surprise to either of them that Q was also issued a summons, for the same day, after Bond’s appointment. M’s message to Q said simply that he wished to discuss a budget increase for Q Branch, and what areas required greater financial support, but both Bond and Q knew better.

“Perhaps you have a notion of why I sent for you,” Mallory said abruptly, once Bond was seated opposite him, with his massive desk between. “And I won’t beat about the bush. I don’t wish to pry into my operatives’ private lives, but it’s come to my attention that you have established a connection of a personal nature with the Head of Q Branch.”

Bond inclined his head without speaking, and his calm acknowledgement appeared to render Mallory somewhat nonplussed. His straightforward approach faltered visibly, and he stood up and began to pace.

“It isn’t so much that I disapprove, 007,” he said, almost fretfully, his handsome, bony face looking slightly pinched beneath the receding hairline. “Or that I think your…” For several seconds he seemed to flounder for lack of the correct vocabulary, hands gesturing vaguely. “…or that I think your _attachment_ to Q compromises us.” He drew a deep breath and stopped pacing. “It isn’t that, and I’m hardly an old-fashioned moralist. Our Quartermaster is certainly worthy of anybody’s, er…” He returned to his desk and sat down again, before eyeing Bond expectantly.

If Bond had allowed himself, he could have smiled at M’s discomfiture. 

“What is it then, sir?” he asked helpfully, and Mallory bit his lip with irritation.

“I’m not terribly concerned on your account,” he said, and then came as close to looking embarrassed as Bond had ever seen him. “No, 007, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. It’s just that you’ve a proven record for nerves of steel and self-discipline, as wayward and resistant to authority as you are. I needn’t worry that you won’t be able to, er, manage things, or stay focused on your work.”

“No, sir,” Bond said quietly, wondering what this was leading up to. “You needn’t worry on my account.”

“The Quartermaster, however, is young, and…” Again, Mallory appeared to be searching for the right words. “And although I have no doubts about his character or his abilities, I wonder if…” Mallory paused for a second time, and gave Bond a dubious stare.

“You wonder if he’ll be able to cope with my incorrigible behavior,” Bond continued for him. “And you’re afraid he’ll be hurt because of what your predecessor once referred to as my tom-catting habits. Or how it might affect him should I die in the field. And, naturally, you don’t want one of MI6’s best assets to suffer from any stress beyond what his work already entails.”

“Well put,” said Mallory dryly, and with a kind of relief. “I see we understand each other, 007. Now, what have you to say?”

Bond blew out his breath in a sigh, and stared at his hands, which were clasped on the shiny surface of M’s desk. “You have nothing to be concerned about, sir, on the matter of my behavior,” he said with an effort. “I may be lacking in many areas, but loyalty isn’t one of them. I’ve been unswervingly loyal to MI6, and I intend to be the same when it comes to—” He moved one hand in a slight gesture; there was no need, after all, to be specific. They both knew what he was talking about. “And Q fully understands what I am occasionally called upon to do in the line of duty. He has never had any objection.”

“He has never had…wait, just how long has this been going on? No, bloody hell, don’t answer that, 007, I don’t think I want to know.”

Bond sat patiently, like an obedient student (which he had never really been), and waited until Mallory regained his composure.

“As to the possibility of my…death,” he continued, with no change of expression, “it’s a risk all the field agents take…and our Quartermaster understands that. Not to mention that he’s quite a bit tougher than most people think he is.”

“I’ll make that determination, thanks, 007,” Mallory retorted in a chilly voice, although the look he shot Bond was not unfriendly, and for a moment he seemed almost on the verge of smiling. “I believe I’m quite capable of assessing the capabilities of the MI6 staff.”

“Yes, sir,” Bond said mildly, it having become obvious that M was not in the mood to be contradicted.

“I’ll be conferring with your…with the Quartermaster, as well,” Mallory finally said, running the back of one hand across his brow in an unconscious gesture. “Oh, not just about, er, this matter, but about some upgrades and other things we have in mind for his department. And so, to get back to business—“  He looked up, suddenly much more comfortable. “You’re on leave, as of now, 007. Once you’ve healed, completely, we’ll talk about sending you back into the field.”

“So I should hope, sir,” Bond replied in a low voice, and rose to his feet as M brought their meeting to a close, and Tanner entered the office in response to a terse summons on the intercom.

As he closed the baize door behind him and moved forward into the anteroom, Bond met Moneypenny’s ironic gaze and pretended to wipe nonexistent beads of sweat from his forehead.

“Put you through the wringer, did he?” Moneypenny almost whispered as he approached her desk. “I thought he might.”

“Oh really?” Bond said, returning her look with a raised eyebrow. “Why? All’s well that ends well, as far as the Doinel business is concerned, and I should be fit for duty in a couple of months.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about, and you know it,” Moneypenny murmured, pursing her lips. “You can be so incredibly _annoying_ , James.”

Q chose that moment to arrive in M’s anteroom, an iPad tablet in one hand and what looked like a white orchid, in full bloom, in the other.

“Is that for me?” Moneypenny asked brightly, a smile in her eyes. “I don’t suppose it’s for Tanner, or the boss…or James.”

Q rolled his eyes. “It’s a mod. A prototype, anyway. For the female agents,” he murmured, balancing the object gingerly in his palm. “When they’re dressed for evening, they can pin one of these on the shoulder of their frocks. It’s got a camera with a wide-angle lense, that sends images back to HQ at three-second intervals. The intervals are adjustable at this end. Press here, for magnification, here for infrared, so you can shoot in total darkness. Oh, and it can function as a tracker, if necessary.”

“Oh, well done, Q,” Moneypenny said admiringly. “Let me see.”

“What,” said Bond. “No comm link?”

“The comm device stays in your ear, 007,” Q retorted crisply. “Where it belongs. Anyway, I don’t expect _you’ll_ be wearing one of these." 

Tanner emerged from M’s office and a wry smile broke, if only for a moment, through his poker-faced expression.  “He’ll see you now,” he said quietly, gesturing Q towards the door. “No time for Shakespeare today, I’m afraid. He has us all leaping through hoops like trained circus animals.”

“Right,” Q replied with something like a wince. “During the next lull, we can retry that last act from Hamlet. I think I know all the lines now.”

“Excellent,” said Tanner, looking pleased. “That is…” he had caught the expression of curiosity on Bond’s face, “…that is, if 007 doesn’t mind.” 

“Mind?” said Bond. “Why on earth should I mind?”

For perhaps two seconds, M’s Chief of Staff looked completely at a loss for words. “Um,” he said blankly. “Er. For no reason...at all. Don’t know why I…”  Moneypenny was grinning evilly at Tanner from behind her desk, and Bond took pity on him.

“I never did thank you for that bottle of Dom Perignon,” he said amiably, changing the subject completely, to Tanner’s evident relief. Then Q—looking mildly perplexed—stepped forward, tugging at his tie and straightening his cardigan, as Tanner ushered him into M’s office.

“It’s a bit awkward,” Moneypenny said to Bond under her breath as Q vanished behind the baize door. “I mean, I know about you two, and Tanner knows, but we have to act as though we don’t. Which seems silly; I mean, genuine relationships between agents and other staff aren’t, strictly speaking, forbidden. But since my first days here, I’ve learned there’s an unspoken rule that such things are kept under wraps, entirely.”

Bond sighed. “You lot have active imaginations,” he said in a noncommittal voice, but Moneypenny wasn’t having any of that.

“Such a beautiful boy,” she said, looking from the door behind which Q had just vanished to Bond, standing motionless by her desk. “And you have your good points, you old dog, you. I don’t know which of you to be jealous of.”

Bond raised his eyebrows at her, but made no comment; as fond as he was of Moneypenny, he was not going to give her the satisfaction of confirming anything. But her words put him in mind of how Q had looked the night before, in Bond’s bed, waiflike with his thin, supple limbs, pale olive skin glowing like alabaster, hair like sable against the linen of the pillow, grey-green eyes narrowed enticingly, and yes, lovely to look at. 

“I’ve known all along, really,” Moneypenny went on, rummaging in her purse for her powder compact. “Call it a woman’s intuition, if you will. But honestly, James, if you didn’t want anybody to find out, you should have made sure your security cameras were switched off before you waltzed the Quartermaster into your lair.”

“Perhaps I was bringing Q to my…lair to inspect the security system,” Bond replied casually. “Oh, by the way, does M need me to sign off on any statements about Albert Doinel?”

“I see you’re not in the mood to share information,” Moneypenny said with obvious disappointment. “Then again, you’re simply not good at sharing, period. It must be your inner child, acting out.”

“I haven’t got an inner child,” Bond retorted, rather entertained by her look of resignation. “My inner self was born middle aged. Now, those documents, if you please? I’ll sign them, and hopefully that will be an end to Monsieur Doinel.”

“Thank God,” Moneypenny huffed. “Good riddance! Although…what a shame the bastard had to be so bloody gorgeous.”

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Not long after midnight Bond and Q sat on opposite sides of Q’s kitchen table, finishing off a makeshift meal of soup, toast, and tea. They were similarly dressed in jeans and tee shirts, but their shoes, socks, and boxers, and Bond’s Omega Seamaster were on the floor in the bedroom. Bond watched with a secretly proprietary air as Q drowsily dipped a corner of his toast in the soup. His hair was falling into his eyes, which appeared to be having trouble staying open. This gave his thin face, with its piquant features, a look of such youthful appeal—a fact which would have shocked Q had anybody informed him of it—that Bond had to suppress a smile.

This was the first time in Bond’s highly adventurous life that he had ever found a person of the same gender as himself to be so aesthetically pleasing. Looking back over his amorous career, he noted that his female conquests had almost all been designed along voluptuous, well-fleshed lines…but extreme thinness in Q’s case was oddly becoming. With Q, in fact, he had already experienced a number of firsts. Earlier that evening, for example, they had been sitting in front of Q’s fireplace, debating the pros and cons of the secret surveillance of ordinary citizens. Q found this practice quite distasteful, and generally opposed it, and though Bond tended to agree with him, he played devil’s advocate for the sole purpose of watching Q’s eyes light up with combative fervor. The Quartermaster had become so vehement in his opposition that Bond had finally pulled him into his arms in an effort to shut him up.

As they had hardly done much in the way of kissing outside of the bedroom, the experience had come as a revelation. Q kissed with a quiet intensity, the sensuous play of his lips and tongue alternately gentle and fierce; it excited Bond the way his eyes closed and his head fell against Bond’s shoulder as he turned up his face, or tilted it further, to give access to that long, slender throat. Bond—admittedly a highly practised kisser—had never gone in for kissing or prolonged foreplay with his few male marks; for them, vigorous, unsentimental fucking had served the purpose. This, of course, was different, and after all that kissing, Q was quivering and languid, reduced to a malleable state that was utterly irresistible. So it was also only natural that Bond should have gotten to his feet and dragged his panting Quartermaster into the bedroom, where he had undressed them both in a matter of seconds, and done what he wanted to do so precipitously that they nearly fell out of the bed. It hadn’t mattered that Q snapped, “Look out, for pity’s sake, Bond,” because his hands were grasping desperately at Bond’s shoulder blades, his cock, rigid and fiercely hot, was pressed between them, and his delicate body was arching up off the mattress in obvious invitation.

Looking at Q now, Bond mused as he drank his tea, it was hard to associate this quiet, drowsy-eyed young man with the flushed, vibrant, and passionate lover who had been wrapped round him in bed, less than two hours earlier.

They had been sitting in comfortable, congenial silence for some time, but Bond finally cleared his throat.

“I’ve taken the liberty of having an extra key card to my flat made. For you, that is.”

“Oh,” said Q, looking both startled and more awake. “That’s, um, very kind, thanks.  I’ve already made one of mine,” he added, almost defensively. “For you.”

“Eve says I should learn how to share,” Bond continued sardonically, refusing to comment on the fact that he had never before had a key to his home made for _anybody_.  “She says my inner child is a spoilt brat.”

“Hmm,” said Q, eyeing Bond judiciously. “She may have a point there.”

“Oh, not you too,” Bond muttered in an aggrieved tone of voice. “I think I’ve shared a great deal with others, over the years.”

“Sharing your cock is not what she was talking about.”

“Your minions would be shocked, Quartermaster, to hear you say such a thing.”

“I doubt it,” Q muttered, yawning. “You should hear _them_ swear when I ask them to work overtime.”

“They’re also quite a bit protective of you,” Bond continued, repressing a grin. “Will Miss Manuelli, or Mr Michaels, annihilate me with one of Q Branch’s latest devices, the next time I approach your office, do you think?”

“Not very likely,” Q replied. “They’re both hoping for promotion, or at least a pay raise. That won’t happen if they assassinate one of MI6’s pet agents. Besides, I’m not going to _tell_ them anything.” He pushed wayward locks of hair back from his brow with both hands, and slid his eyes in Bond’s direction with the faintly impish, faintly ironic smile Bond had first seen at their initial meeting in the National Gallery. “And M would not be amused.”

“I’ve yet to discover what Mallory _does_ find amusing,” Bond replied absently. “The man’s an excellent Chief of Secret Intelligence, but he doesn’t seem to have anything resembling a sense of humor. I don’t believe I’ve ever heard him laugh, let alone chuckle.”

“You don’t exactly howl with laughter often, yourself.”

“Well, nor do you, come to think on it.” Bond retorted, but then he remembered the last time he had seen his Quartermaster laugh. He had come upon him in the bedroom, practically doubled over, tears standing in the corners of his eyes as he read the detailed instructions label on a new, unopened bottle of lubricant. Upon being questioned about this highly uncharacteristic behavior, he had managed to gasp, “They give you very serious step by step instructions on how to, let’s see, ‘ _lengthen your pleasure_ ’ by applying this ‘ _to_ _your best advantage_ ’…” before succumbing to another wave of mirth.

“I laugh when the occasion calls for it,” Q was saying, through a series of yawns, as Bond returned to the present. “Not that there’s ever much to laugh about in the world of cyber espionage.”

“No, I don’t suppose there is,” Bond said, his mind still half-occupied with the memory of Q’s laughter, which had sounded a little like a cross between morning birdsong and a rising scale. ***** “And you needn’t fear I’m going to pry into the workings of Q Branch. You lot can keep your secrets. Look out, you’re going to knock over your soup.”

Q steadied the bowl with one hand, peering owlishly across the table, his glasses askew on the bridge of that insouciant nose, and gave a slow, sleepy smile that did funny things to Bond’s thought processes. “So you still think I’m secretive, James?”

Bond rose to his feet and carried his soup bowl to the sink, to hide the look he knew had come over his face. Q addressed him by his first name so seldom that every time he used it, it was like a caress. “Of course you’re secretive. It’s necessary, in your line of work. Although, Mr MBH, you did tell me what the initials of your _name_ stand for…the first two initials, anyway.”

Q snorted. “I did indeed. I hope you’re satisfied.”

“Not entirely,” Bond replied mildly. “You can satisfy me later.”

Q assumed a martyred expression and rolled his eyes. “Why is it you have such a one-track mind, 007?”

“I don’t,” Bond protested, returning to his seat as he carefully rotated his left shoulder. The stitches on his upper arm itched abominably, a sign that his injury was healing on schedule. “I meant, I hope you’ll be telling me your last name.”

“I will,” Q responded, shrugging. “Just be patient. You know I’m breaking all sorts of regulations, telling you any of it. And why is your shoulder hunched like that—is it your stitches? Don’t tell me arthritis is beginning to set in, at your age.”

“Give me a few more years,” Bond retorted, very resignedly. “My God, but you’re a cheeky youngster.”

“Well, does your arm hurt?”

“Not much. My other arm, however…look, I’ve got a red mark where you bit me.”

Q flushed pink, suddenly and endearingly, but he compressed his lips and then snapped, in his most precise Quartermaster staccato, “A purely temporary discoloration, and it can’t possibly hurt.” Then he yawned yet again. “God, I’m exhausted.”

“Right, then,” said Bond, standing up again and stretching. “Let’s go back to bed, little boffin.”

“Immediately,” said Q, also getting to his feet. “And I’d rather you not refer to me as a little boffin." 

“Right, sorry,” Bond murmured, cocking his head to one side and surveying him. “You’re a grown up boffin now.”

“And you’re looking for trouble, Mr Bond.”

“Oh, good,” said Bond, smoothly, and reached out to switch off the kitchen light. “Come on then. We need our rest.”

“Rest!” scoffed Q, following slowly in Bond’s wake with that smile still quivering on his wide, boyish mouth. “That’ll be the day.”

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

“If you’re quite finished,” Q said philosophically the following morning, after a drowsy but delightful mutual climax, induced almost entirely by Q’s clever hands, “perhaps you won’t mind if I sleep in for a bit.”

“I need feeding,” Bond mumbled, raising his head to get a glimpse of the window. “My inner child is ravenously hungry. Aren’t there some eggs in that high tech refrigerator of yours?”

“What you need is a nursemaid then, not a lo…um, companion,” Q mumbled back, turning onto his stomach and burying his face in the pillow.

Bond’s palm skimmed lightly over the smooth skin of Q’s lean, taut buttocks. “Unless you want me to start getting _ideas_ , you should consider satisfying my other appetites.”

“I really, really hate you,” Q murmured, struggling to unwind his legs from the bedclothes. Bond noticed that, even in the throes of post-coital euphoria, his Quartermaster enunciated every word as clearly and perfectly as he did when explaining a piece of tech in Q Branch: every consonant, every vowel, softly voiced but distinct. “And there aren’t any eggs. You ate the last one.”

“Ah,” replied Bond. “Are you sure?” He put his hand into Q’s thick, dark hair and turned his face towards him. Q squirmed away from his grip, and the corners of his mouth curved again in that tremulous, almost elfin smile, but it was his eyes that had Bond nearly transfixed, their changeable color now a jewel-like agate grey, flecked with hazel green, above which those dark lashes rose and fell.

Oh God, but this cool-eyed, hollow-cheeked, delicately wiry young man—a bona fide genius to boot—was beautiful. Bond could almost hear his inner caveman frantically clamoring, “Mine!”

So he grumbled, countering this sudden, uncharacteristic surge of emotion by saying gruffly that since this was Q’s flat, Q could bloody well get up and find something for them to have for breakfast. Q responded by tumbling out of bed and heading, naked and half-awake, for the kitchen, giving Bond a moment to appreciate his angular and fragile grace.

Returning to the bedroom moments later, Q admitted that his refrigerator was, indeed, barren of proper edibles, and announced that he was going to brush his teeth and then go out to the local grocer’s. Still grumbling, Bond rolled over and, unexpectedly, fell asleep, waking ten minutes later to the sight of his still-unclothed Quartermaster rubbing vigorously at his hair with a towel.

“I’ve had a shower,” Q said, indicating the half-open bathroom door, from which puffs of citrus-scented steam were emerging. “It’s all yours.”

“Good,” murmured Bond, sniffing at the steam, which smelled of his Quartermaster’s shampoo. “That should wake me up. Have you got an especially large towel, Q…that is…I keep forgetting to call you _Marcus Benedict_.”

“Ben,” said Q absently, hunting in the bottom of his wardrobe for towels. “But you can go on calling me Q, I’m used to it, and I think I rather like it.”

“And you _still_ haven’t told me your surname,” Bond continued, catching the towel Q tossed at him. “But it must begin with an H.”

“Yes,” said Q, “it must.” And then he lapsed into a determined silence that Bond broke by announcing he was going to take a long, very hot shower, and that it didn’t bloody matter what Q’s last name was, and that Q, er, Ben, could tell him when he was bloody ready.

Q threw him a grateful look, and, because they had left the bedroom window open the night before, absently pulled on his blue and white striped flannel pyjamas before padding into the kitchen to put the kettle on. When Bond finally emerged from the bathroom wearing a pair of pyjamas that were a larger version of Q’s, he found two mugs steaming on the kitchen table, two glasses of freshly squeezed orange juice, but no Q; he had, Bond presumed, gone out for provisions.

His guess turned out to be correct; Q had indeed gone provisioning, and returned ten minutes later with a plastic sack filled with fresh fruit, milk, a loaf of crusty bread, unsalted butter, eggs, and a pot of raspberry jam. These were placed on the kitchen table and Q, who had pulled a pair of baggy exercise trousers and a coat over his pyjamas before venturing out of doors, discarded these two articles of outerwear and proceeded to slice bread for toast, as Bond dealt with the French press coffee pot. Once coffee mugs were refilled, toast was prepared, and the fruit, butter, and jam set out on the table, Q also unearthed from a cupboard an assortment of cardboard boxes. These turned out, upon Bond’s inspection, to be a variety of American breakfast cereals.

“What on earth?” muttered Bond, examining the boxes with a critical eye as Q, lithe and rumpled-looking in his blue and white stripes, slid two slices of bread into his toaster. “Do you really eat this sort of thing?”

“You needn’t eat any, if you don’t like them,” Q replied, blinking at Bond through the fragrant steam rising from his coffee mug.

“Good God! Cheerios!”

“My choice of breakfast cereal is hardly relevant.”

“These are nasty, sugary _children’s_ cereals.”

“Cheerios are not exactly sugary.”

“They’re for babies.”

“Condescending bastard.”

“Puling infant.”

“It amazes me,” Q said with a resigned wriggle of his shoulders, “that I can actually put up with you for long stretches of time without completely losing my temper or my sanity.”

“It’s because you benefit from my company,” Bond replied smugly, shunting the box of cereal in Q’s direction and reaching, instead, for the toast. “It provides your genius brain with necessary stimulation. Or can you think of some other reason?"

“It’s probably a deep, neurotic need,” Q replied absently, pouring milk. “Better left unanalyzed.”

“They say you genius types find the rest of us exasperatingly slow.”

“I wouldn’t exactly call you slow in the intelligence department. Or in any other respect. Simply reckless. But you are unquestionably exasperating.”

“I’m certain I can find many ways to exasperate you. Perhaps I’ll start calling you Benny.”

Q sighed. “I’d prefer not. And don’t expect me to call you Jamie, or Jimmy, or any other pet name.” There was a drop of milk on his upper lip, and he swiped at it with the tip of his pink tongue.  Bond’s eyes followed the movement, but the need for nourishment then drove them both to shut up, and they did away with the toast, fruit, cereal, and coffee in very little time.

“Now,” said Bond when the dishes had been deposited in the sink. “As M considers me a convalescing invalid, I should probably rest and attempt a low-impact workout later on. Do you think I’m fit for duty, or for little more than lying about in bed?”

Q gave him a considering look, black lashes half-lowered over eyes that were suddenly sparkling with an affectionate maliciousness.

“It’s hard to know which, in your pyjamas.”

* * *

 

***Mr Whishaw had a charming, almost girlish, giggle in “Bright Star.”**


	17. Epilogue: Two Points of View

**EPILOGUE, TWO POINTS OF VIEW**

**Q's Point of View :**

In Q's ideal world, nobody would have known. Well, Eve might have had a notion, perhaps Tanner, but no one else. They would have kept things secret and simple, not revealing their situation to the rest of MI6, or even acquaintances in the "real world". Beyond work, outside of MI6, they would have lived rather simply (apart from the luxuries—fine wine, good food, tailored suits—that Bond was not likely to do without), sometimes at Bond's, sometimes at Q's, sharing quiet evenings, reading the newspaper, watching television, before becoming completely undone in bed. Or, if they were particularly exhausted, simply going to sleep in the warmth of each other's personal space.

Naturally, things didn't work out quite that way.

At first it _seemed_ as though almost everybody knew. From his own jubilant staff in Q Branch ("Maybe it'll relax him," Manuelli said doubtfully. "Maybe he'll stop being so bloody intense,") to M's inner sanctum (Mallory seemed a touch embarrassed about the whole thing) the secret seemed to be secret no longer. Bond took this in stride, as he took most things, and Q maintained his outward air of authoritative cool, even as his inner self quaked with nerves. For a week, it appeared to him as though everybody at MI6 was leveling a curious, assessing stare in his direction as they passed him in the hallways; narrowing their eyes with prurient curiosity.

Bond assured him that this was not the case at all, and that nobody was paying the slightest attention to either of them.

And the fact of the matter was that only a handful of people were really aware of their connection—M, Moneypenny, Tanner, and the boffins in the computer lab. Q's pragmatic, common-sense outlook eventually reasserted itself…even though he did feel faintly self-conscious when Mallory gave him one of those sideways looks, or if Manuelli, as ferociously vigilant about his well-being as ever, muttered _tsk tsk tsk_ in his direction if he yawned over his morning Earl Grey. Naturally, he had no desire to trumpet his personal life to the world at large. Q knew that to most people, having 007 as a paramour would be considered a very large feather in the cap, and some—Hanson, for example—would not have hesitated to exploit it or make certain that their colleagues heard about it. But both he and Bond were very private people, secretive in the extreme when it came to their lives outside of MI6, and not given to gloating or bragging over anything to do with sex. Even in his most flagrantly promiscuous days, in the earlier years of his work for the secret service, Bond had never been one to kiss and tell.

As for the, um, relationship between the two of them…Q liked to think of it as a work in progress. As neither of them was an open book—they were more like two tightly shut volumes, in fact—it was taking a while, but they were gradually learning to read each other, to decipher each other's body language, nuances of facial expression, the meanings behind a raised eyebrow or eye rolling accompanied by an almost inaudible snort. Q had grown quite accustomed to 007's cool-eyed, inscrutable demeanor, his unexplained, sometimes chilly silences, the way he occasionally withdrew into himself with a kind of bleakness that made him unapproachable, the sardonic expression he often displayed upon his return from a mission abroad. Then, too, he supposed that Bond had no objection to his own mildly arrogant snark, periodic tetchiness, and the way he could divorce himself from the human sphere when absorbed in the continually changing universe of cyberspace.

Since starting work at MI6, and _before this thing with Bond_ , Q had spent most of his limited time off on his own, reading up on the latest tech innovations in the quiet serenity of his flat, catching up on missed hours of sleep, and only once in a while—quite rarely, in fact—meeting with friends for a dinner, or drinks, or the cinema. Now, on his sporadic days off, he could expect to be greeted by the sight of James Bond mixing a drink at his sideboard, or reading the newspaper at the kitchen table, or doing sit-up reps on his sitting room carpet. The strong lines of Bond's profile and short fair hair, outlined by sunlight from the kitchen window as he stood at the sink, rinsing wine glasses or coffee cups (domesticity was not 007's strong point, but he committed to doing half of the washing-up), gave Q a feeling of warmth combined with lightheaded pleasure that he would never admit to anyone…certainly not to the source of these particular feelings. They spent some of their free evenings at Bond's flat, as well; this bipartite arrangement seemed to be working nicely, and as of yet neither had broached the subject of someday, possibly, sharing a single living space.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Not long after they settled into this routine, Bond was sent off to America to look into the case of a missing MI6 operative. The operative had been working with an ex-CIA agent gone rogue, by the name of Lavender Belle ("That can't be her _real_ name," Q muttered through Bond's earpiece), and, after making certain Miss Belle had not double-crossed them, Bond joined forces with her to locate his vanished colleague. The operative turned out to have been kidnapped; he was rescued without any damage to himself or 007, and Bond returned to London, relieved to only have found it necessary to spend one night in Lavender's arms in order to guarantee her assistance in the matter and cement their working relationship.

" _Cement_ your relationship?" Q said with a kind of wry humour, via the earpiece, the following day. "That's certainly one way of putting it."

Upon his return, Bond encountered disapproving looks from the Q Branch boffins, in spite of their boss's matter-of-fact acceptance of 007's MO, and they watched with an eagle eye as he returned undamaged tech to the Quartermaster. It was only after witnessing their boss's unruffled demeanor, and seeing him smile at something 007 murmured under his breath, that they ceased scowling in Bond's general direction.

"Your minions are an irreverent bunch," Bond said musingly, his voice a little raspy with fatigue, as he and Q sat down that evening to a simple meal and a bottle of very good wine. "But for all that, they patently worship the ground you walk on. I don't know that they particularly approve of me."

"They probably think I've gone wonky, upstairs," Q replied, tapping his forehead with the tip of his forefinger. "And they don't actually _disapprove_ of you at all, in my opinion. They just can't understand why we, um, er. And they don't worship me, as you put it."

"Miss Manuelli and Mr Michaels would kill and die to keep you safe. The newest ones seem rather awestruck, and frightened of you."

"That's bollocks," said Q, shrugging and setting down his wineglass.

"You can be intimidating, Quartermaster. When you lecture them, for example."

"I'm not going to _bite_ them, after all. Do I seem intimidating when I'm lecturing _you_?"

"Nooo," drawled Bond, and Q could see the beginnings of an ironic grin quivering at the corners of his mouth. "But then, the last time you lectured me about anything—my disregard of retrieval protocols, I believe it was—you had no clothes on and I didn't find you intimidating in the least." He paused for a moment and then said ruminatively, "Even though you _do_ sometimes bite."

Q bit his own lower lip, eyes darkening.

"Perhaps it's your Medusa-like hair," Bond said, and Q frowned to prevent himself from laughing.

"There are moments when I'd really like to punch you," he murmured, balling one slender hand into a fist.

Bond tilted his head a little, exposing his jaw. "Punch away," he said calmly with just a glimmer of amusement.

Q heaved a mighty sigh of faked annoyance. "I have no intention of risking life and limb in hand-to-hand combat with a Double O agent, thanks."

Bond made no reply, but his infuriatingly suggestive, crooked grin became even more pronounced. Q deliberately ignored it, but later that evening, after finishing their light supper and sitting quietly by the fire with a little brandy, he disappeared into the bedroom with a backward look at Bond, his lips curving in an impish smile that was both inviting and faintly ironic. And when Bond followed and slid into the bed beside him, Q, his thin, bare body gleaming in the dim light of the single lamp, seduced him with the kind of careful, dedicated precision he devoted to the most fine-tuned of his weapons and surveillance devices: taking him to the edge and over it with a fantastically soft, hot mouth and a strong yet sensitive touch.

"Good?" he whispered a little while after, his own breathing still rapid as his heartbeat began to slow to its usual rhythm. He lay sprawled across Bond's handsomely sculpted torso, feeling his chest rise and fall with his even, steady breath.

Bond wrinkled his brow judiciously. "Better than good," he mumbled, sliding one hand into the silky mess of Q's hair. "Although…"

Q raised his head and squinted at Bond through his fringe. "Although?"

"If you'd allow me a moment to recover, I think a little instruction would not go amiss."

"Oh, is that so?" growled Q, rather defiantly, but not long after, when Bond rolled them over, so that Q was beneath him, one hand cupping his face while the other reached for his cock, he made no objection whatsoever.

Bond was slow and thorough, holding Q down (something Q liked, although he hated to admit it) and taking his time, mouthing lightly along his jaw, throat, chest, teasing his cock with fingers and then lips, and finally shifting until they were face to face. Q felt weightless under him; he ran his hands over the wonderful play of muscle and sinew that rippled beneath the smooth skin of Bond's back, turned his face against his neck, and moaned aloud as Bond pushed into him.

"You'd think we'd be used to, well, you know, by now," Q said resignedly, when they both awoke sometime after midnight, tangled in the bedclothes with Q tucked into the curve of Bond's arm.

"Not _complaining_ , are you?" Bond mumbled wryly, opening one eye. "No, I've not gotten used to it, as you put it, and from the look of things, neither have you."

"Arrogant, conceited prick," Q snorted, but he was smiling.

"Superior, supercilious little shit," Bond replied with equanimity, yawning peacefully. "Shall we get up for a bit…I'm—"

"I know, I know," Q interrupted, untangling himself from the bedclothes. "You're starving." He sat up and rubbed his eyes with his fists. "I don't really want to go out, so I'll…I'll…"

As the last thing he wanted to do at the moment was get dressed and venture out of doors, Q went rummaging, without much hope, through the cupboards and shelves of his kitchen. He knew that 007 liked a good meal, properly served, and that, just now, he was probably fantasizing along the lines of pheasant or quail, with crisp roasted vegetables, served on a large, heavy white plate with a perfectly pressed linen napkin. A glass of fine white wine to go with it. To be followed by a small crème brulee, or a perfect pear, baked with just a little vanilla sugar, cinnamon, and a curl of lemon peel. Which was too bloody bad, because Q's kitchen contained nothing at all like that and was rather bare due to his recent preoccupation with 002's latest mission. After a few minutes, Bond strolled in and began examining the contents of the refrigerator as Q poked at the remains of a loaf of crusty brown bread to see if it was still edible.

They made do with toast topped with thin slices of country paté—Bond discovered a crock of the latter at the back of the fridge and was told that it had been a gift from some member of Q's formidable family. This was accompanied by coffee of staggering strength, as dark as treacle; Bond looked somewhat askance at his cup but drank it anyway. The modest meal was enough to satisfy them and they were, by this time, far too energy-depleted to consider making anything more complicated.

Q blinked his eyes and realized that Bond had set a second slice of pate-covered toast in front of him.

"Eat, before you disappear altogether."

"I consume an adequate quantity of calories and carbs, thanks. And I can't help being this shape, it's just the way I am. I'm sorry if you find it unacceptable."

"I find it quite beyond acceptable, as you very well know," replied Bond in his driest voice.

They sat quietly for several minutes, contentedly devouring their toast, and then Q turned his head with lowered eyes and a degree of hesitation that he knew Bond rarely saw in him.

"Eve told me something in confidence. She said M was seriously thinking of retiring you from field work, giving you a desk job, or having you train the young recruits."

"He's _that_ worried about me?"

"He's not worried about you, James. He's worried about me. He's afraid that if you die in the field, I'll fall apart. That I wouldn't be any good for MI6, and they'd have to find somebody to replace me."

"He doesn't know you very well, does he? I'm convinced you'd carry on, no matter what happened to me."

Q looked at him a little dubiously, but seemed unwilling to discuss the possibility. "Well, he changed his mind and said there isn't any way they can retire you from active duty."

"Ah. Why is that?"

"Because you're the best. The best Double O agent they've got, the best they've ever had. You're pathologically overconfident and uncannily good at staying alive. Nobody else even comes close to your success rate in the field."

Q surveyed Bond carefully after delivering this second-hand accolade, privately pleased with the fact that 007, the ice-cold espionage professional and killer, with his lightning-fast reflexes and steely hands, was resting his elbows casually on Q's kitchen table, his lithe, hard body and keen features relaxed, blue eyes gentle. As Q watched, the look in those eyes changed from a somber gaze to one of amusement.

"Is that what the top brass are saying, really?" Bond murmured skeptically. "You'd never know it, from M's consistent displeasure with me."

"He isn't displeased, he thinks you take too many risks, that's all."

"He'd be utterly displeased if I didn't take risks," Bond retorted as he consigned another slice of bread to the toaster. "Now." He reached out and brushed Q's wayward hair back from his forehead. "Would you kindly pour me some more of that high-octane coffee? It might give me the strength needed to break the record for men over forty and make it three times in one night, don't you think?"

**Bond's Point of View :**

"It was bloody awful," Bond said flatly as Mallory scrutinized him from the other side of his desk. It was late morning; he had flown in from Venice and come straight from the airport to MI6; consequently he was feeling the need for a drink, a shower, and a shag, not necessarily in that order. But the chances were virtually nil that Mallory would offer him a drink. And he could hardly make his way down to Q Branch, tear the Quartermaster away from his minions and the computer lab, and have him against the wall of a utility closet or shower stall.

"Bloody awful? Most would disagree, 007," M responded, looking mildly surprised. "Your mission was concluded in record time, without even a hint of collateral damage to the surroundings."

"That may be, sir," Bond murmured, examining his cuffs. "But the contents of thirty bottles of 2004 Dom Perignon went into the canal."

M rolled his eyes discreetly, but declined to smile. "My compliments," he said finally, eyeing Bond almost curiously. "On a job well completed."

Bond knew why Mallory was studying him without bothering to try and hide it, and knew as well that MI6 had hesitated to send him on this latest mission. He had not spent time in Venice since that sad affair of Vesper Lynde, Le Chiffre, and the British Treasury funds. For the past several days, however, the only sentiments that had stirred in him, as he gazed at the murky water of intersecting canals beneath the facades of grand old Renaissance buildings, were a gentle melancholy, a kind of faded regret, and pity for the tragedy of Vesper's personal and professional life. His own life had taken so many twists and turns since that unhappy event, and now…

"It was touch and go, there at the Palazzo Grimani," M said suddenly, almost as an afterthought. "Our, er, Q Branch staff was not happy with the way you ignored their instructions."

"I made a judgment call," Bond replied. "Q Branch is quite accustomed to that, I should think."

Mallory grimaced. "Yes," he said finally, rising from his chair to indicate that the meeting was at an end. "You do manage to cheat death with remarkable regularity."

Bond made no reply as he, too, got to his feet. Earlier that morning, upon his arrival at MI6 but before reporting to Mallory, he had paid a visit to the legal branch of MI6, to confer with the staff there and to amend his will. Now, according to this signed and witnessed document, in the event of his demise approximately one-third of his liquid assets was to be divided amongst various charities, with a few small bequests to a handful of individuals. The beneficiary of the remaining two-thirds, plus his material goods and real estate, was one Marcus Benedict Holmes, otherwise known—to MI6 at least—as the Head of Q Branch.

He didn't tell Q what he had done. He didn't think Q would approve. But he had wanted to do it. Q…that is, Ben, was the closest thing he had to family, and although he collected a respectable salary, it would do him no harm to have an additional financial cushion to rely on in the event of 007's death.

Although Q had never said anything about it, Bond was aware that the near-miss with Albert Doinel had shaken him. Not long after Bond's self-release from hospital, Q had begun stocking both of their flats with ingeniously concealed or disguised weaponry; the nightstands on either side of Q's bed were now equipped with hidden drawers, each with a firearm; there were guns hidden in tins of coffee beans and boxes of Weetabix, a canister filled with sleeping gas stood on the kitchen counter next to the salt and pepper shakers, and a well-constructed sheath on the underside of his dining table held a perfectly balanced throwing knife. Bond found this unexpected protectiveness on the part of his Quartermaster oddly endearing, but, like Q, kept his feelings on the matter to himself.

He had caught a glimpse of Q after leaving the legal branch, moments before reporting to M. Q had been—where else—in the computer lab, conveying instructions simultaneously to 002 and an extraction team. The retrieval appeared to be going well, because, as Bond watched, unobtrusively stationed where Q couldn't see him, the Quartermaster's brow smoothed out and his thin shoulders relaxed, although his lips were still pressed together in a narrow line and he tugged absently at rebellious tendrils of his hair. Bond had watched for a few moments longer, enjoying the changes of expression that chased one another across those boyish, mobile features. Q brushed a lock of hair out of his eyes with the inside of his wrist, and Bond had felt a sudden heat, part affection and part lust, steal through his own body. He suppressed it.

"Code 13," Q said tautly into his comm link, eyes intent and focused on one of the wall screens. Fascinating. Bond was still fascinated by him, and it vaguely occurred to him that he would continue to be, for as long as they lasted. Which he now privately suspected could be until the day his target was faster with a gun than he was, or until—unlikely but not impossible—old age or illness finally did him in. It was difficult for him to wrap his mind round the concept of some sort of _permanence_ —and he suspected it was difficult for Q to do the same—but he couldn't remember ever having found satisfaction for both his senses and his brain to the degree that he was experiencing this with his MI6 Quartermaster.

None of his colleagues, Bond thought wryly as he exited M's office, could have any idea of the sorts of things he and the Quartermaster got up to, after hours. They saw the sharp, crisp-voiced, young man, lanky and bespectacled, attending to his duties with an eagle eye, fingers flying over the keyboard of his laptop, eyes darting from screen to screen on the walls of the computer lab. That nobody but himself knew the beautiful, ardent, silken-mouthed changeling who waited for him in bed at night afforded him a private, rather selfish satisfaction. The very few people who did know about them were probably astonished that the legendary 007 had developed an actual attachment to a brilliant, bookish co-worker who, for all of his waifish delicacy, was undeniably male. However, they asked no questions (save for Moneypenny's innuendos). Ever since M's acerbic lecture, 008—who probably _did not_ know anything—had withdrawn to a respectful distance. And if any of the brainy young techies in Q Branch lusted after the pink lips and foal-like limbs of their boss, they were smart enough to keep it to themselves.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

As Bond had disregarded Q's explicit escape route instructions towards the end of his Venice mission, he knew he would have to face the music for what had been, for him, a typical act of insubordination. On the way to Q's flat, he reflected wryly that this could conceivably take them to a whole new level of angry sex followed by make-up sex.

He found Q in the kitchen, dealing with the dishes from his morning meal, left unwashed that morning when he had had to rush off to MI6, at an early summons from Mallory's office.

"Before you castigate me for carelessness," Bond said abruptly, not giving Q a chance to speak first, "I'll have you know I don't take shortcuts unless I know precisely where I'm going to end up." (This was a blatant lie, but Bond thought it might be justifiable.) His tone of voice was cold, mostly because he found himself unnerved by the intensity of his reaction to the sight of his Quartermaster, clad in a whisper-thin white tee shirt that was damp with suds, and a pair of ancient jeans that fitted his long, narrow legs like a second skin. "The situation was entirely under control."

"Oh really?" said Q with quiet savagery, setting bowls and glasses in the sink with great care, as if he was afraid that his anger might cause him to break them inadvertently. "And since when do the words 'second door to the left' sound like 'take the stairs to the right'?"

"I knew there was a speedboat in the canal, just at the bottom of the steps," Bond replied in his own defense, knowing Q was not going to accept the explanation. "Don't look so fierce, little leopard. All's well that ends well."

Q turned to face him, his back to the sink, eyes narrowed into icy green slits, the sudden flush along his cheekbones heightened by emotion; he looked as tense as a feral animal poised to spring, and almost disturbingly desirable. He opened his mouth—no doubt to deliver some blistering comment—but Bond placed both hands on the counter, on either side of Q but not touching him, and said in a low voice, "It's alright, I promise. I had the best of motivations to stay out of danger."

Q rolled his eyes and scowled, drawing his black brows together with a sensual flaring of his nostrils, but Bond could see that some of the tension had already left his body. Then he looked down the length of his charming, slightly tip-tilted nose and muttered, with his usual pristine elocution, "Sometimes I think you enjoy driving me and my staff to the edge of insanity." He reached blindly for what appeared to be a new bottle of dishwashing soap and a bolt of something that sizzled flew across the room and struck the opposite wall with the sound a mosquito might make, if it were the size of a Great Dane.

"Oh _fuck!_ " Q said in a despairing voice, wrestling with the bottle, and Bond raised both eyebrows.

"Some sort of taser, is it," he said finally, watching Q, now flushed with irritation, stow the offending object beneath the sink. "Not the sort of thing you usually bring home from HQ, Quartermaster."

"Obviously it's a taser…of sorts," Q retorted rather faintly, the hectic pink finally fading from his cheeks. "Housed in a perfectly ordinary-looking soap bottle. Brought it home last week…but, as you can see, it looks too much like the real thing…and I forgot." For a moment he looked so mortified, embarrassed, and young that Bond stifled a smile.

"I hope I'm not going to find weapons crammed into the pockets of my dinner jackets." The better part of Bond's clothing was still in his own flat, but he had brought several items to Q's, where they now hung in their expensive glory in Q's wardrobe, along with cardigans, Q's limited quantity of formal wear, white shirts, and his anorak. "You haven't hidden any explosives there, have you?"

"Wouldn't want to damage your Savile Row suits," Q replied stiffly, although his expression had softened. "Of course I haven't. But there is a nice, updated Lee-Enfield behind the cold weather gear."

Bond suppressed another smile. "Your concern for my safety is touching," he said after a moment. "Shall we put dinner on hold until later?" He reached out slowly and placed the tips of his fingers on one of the places where he knew Q liked to be touched, the silky, sensitive skin in the bend of his elbow, and left them there.

"Cease and desist, 007," Q said, but he said it with the tiniest hint of a gamin grin. Their eyes met and Q swallowed hard; a moment later he turned and walked in silence to the bedroom, with Bond, also wordless, following behind. There, in the semi-darkness, Bond undressed Q with an almost brutal haste before removing his own clothing, dropping it unceremoniously to the floor.

It wasn't angry sex after all. In bed Q could be as fierce as the leopard Bond compared him to, but on a few occasions, like this one, he was astonishingly pliant, raising his chin meekly to allow Bond to nibble at his throat, running those sensitive hands over Bond's back and the hard curve of his buttocks, arching that thin, thin dancer's body like a bow, opening his legs at Bond's hoarse command, allowing himself to be taken.

"I've been thinking," Bond said later, fingers still clenched in Q's mop of hair, "that we might go on a bit of a holiday after my next assignment."

Q raised his head from Bond's chest and stared at him, rubbing at the faint imprint his glasses had left on the bridge of his nose. "Holiday? You must be joking. I don't think…Mallory wouldn't like…"

"If it were only me, I wouldn't even put in for one. I'd just disappear for a few weeks. But Mallory's so by-the-book that he might not tolerate it…his predecessor would have understood."

"Mallory's not as by-the-book as all that. He let me and Tanner bend the rules, that time you and, um, the other M made a run for Scotland, and he never reported it to the Minister. In fact, he was all for it."

Bond dismissed Mallory with a shrug. "We needn't do it openly, in fact it's probably best that we don't. It wouldn't be any trouble to travel separately, to whatever place we decide on, and meet there. Someplace warm," he continued inexorably. "With beaches."

"Bloody hell, you _must be_ joking. And I don't think I can afford—"

"Coconut palms. Good food and excellent drink." There was no immediate response from Q, so Bond went on casually, looking at him from the corner of his eye. "Bungalows on the water, dining under the stars. Four-star restaurants and beautiful, wealthy women in haute couture bikinis."

"Not thinking of going into the gigolo business as a sideline, are you?" Q said, rolling his eyes.

After pretending to give this a moment's thought, Bond shook his head and sighed. "It's all I can do to keep up with _you_ , for pity's sake. What makes you think this grand old warship, to quote a certain Quartermaster, has that degree of stamina?"

Q gave him one of those unfathomable looks, but a moment later his mouth was warm and soft against Bond's, and his eyelids were drooping with drowsy pleasure.

"I haven't been at MI6 long enough to merit a lengthy vacation."

"Mallory knows, or should know, that a man in your position, with your kind of job, can burn out easily…it's the constant pressure. I think he believes in allowing his staff to decompress on occasion."

"I'm not going to burn out," Q mumbled indignantly, yawning, but Bond could see that the seed he had planted in his young Quartermaster's mind was going to take root and grow. As for himself, the very idea of a holiday, however brief, with Q—with _Ben_ —was giving rise to entertaining images, of all sorts, in his imagination.

"Just think it over," he said quietly. "There's plenty of time."

"I, um…" Q said unhelpfully, and yawned again. Bond rolled to the edge of the bed and stood up, halfway to comatose with a delicious fatigue, but also in need of some sustenance. Their sexual marathons tended to produce this ravenous condition in both of them.

In Q's kitchen they managed to assemble a tottering pile of buttered toast and two cups of coffee, the combination that had become their usual post-coital snack.

"Whatever shortcomings you may have," Q announced over a mouthful of toast, "you make an excellent cup of coffee." There were delicate bistre shadows beneath his eyes and his mouth was slightly swollen, but to Bond, a man not given to poetic sentimentality, he had never looked more dryad-like with his rumpled hair, long, slim neck, and bony shoulders.

"Very excellent," Q was saying as he replenished his coffee mug.

"Ah," Bond replied philosophically, draining his. "No doubt that's why you tolerate my presence in your domicile."

"No," snapped Q, and said nothing more. Bond waited for the space of several heartbeats before Q went on, in a voice that mingled sarcasm and affection, "and I suppose you roped me into this, um, arrangement so as to have first access to our latest tech."

"No, not really. I had other reasons."

"For example?" Q muttered as he pushed his fringe out of his eyes.

"Well," Bond said slowly, as though giving the matter some serious consideration, "it was the only way I could think to get you out of those dreadful cardigans."

* * *

**My deepest thanks to everybody who read this fic and left comments, which were greatly appreciated. Thank you for slogging through the long chapters; I'm afraid I get horribly wordy.**

**More comments are VERY welcome!**

**I confess I didn't know what to do about Q's name. If the Bond franchise ever decides to give him one, I can always insert it into the text. I don't really think that Ben Whishaw's Q is meant to be Major Geoffrey Boothroyd, who was never young (and was always quite a bit older than Bond) in the earlier films. Skyfall's Q appears to represent a new era, hence Bond's muttered "Brave new world" in the National Gallery scene. But of course I could be completely mistaken.**

**I tried to keep Bond and Q as in-character as I could, which was a challenge, especially in young Q's case—as we didn't find out all that much about him, in Skyfall.**

**I didn't put the Holmes brothers into this story, as the primary plotline involves Bond and Q's evolving relationship. I am thinking of doing a one-shot follow up, involving Bond and the formidable Holmes family, including John and Greg Lestrade.  
**

**I have to thank two readers who alerted me to something I wrote about Tolkien elf ears in the postscript to Chapter 5. Evidently Tolkien's elves ARE meant to have pointed ears, as they do in the films. This isn't mentioned in** _**The Lord of the Rings** _ **books (which I've read many times), but apparently Tolkien did indicate this in other, later writings. So I'm grateful for the info.**

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [whatever shortcomings (you may have)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2325023) by [beili](https://archiveofourown.org/users/beili/pseuds/beili)




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